By Alejandra Monge | Executive Director
Since our last update, we have made it to the end of the first month of our 2016 sea turtle conservation program in Rio Oro. Our move from Drake Bay to Rio Oro last year exceeded all of our expectations with an incredible 3000 nests logged. In fact, our data suggests that Rio Oro may be one of the most important beaches in the south Pacific of Costa Rica for solitary olive ridleys.
Due to this huge number of nesting turtles, the Corcovado Foundation needs your help more than ever to continue projecting these stunning creatures. To complete the season this year, we are seeking $10,000 from generous people like you. Conservation equipment such as turtle tags, data loggers and gloves need to be purchased, which really adds up when you are protecting thousands of nests!
The Corcovado Foundation is also committed to continue giving back to the community through our environmental programs. This means that we need your help in order to train local people in sea turtle conservation, pay for volunteer accommodation, local salaries and transportation.
This community-based conservation model proved to be extremely successful in our previous location of Drake Bay. By engaging with people who were poaching turtle eggs and offering them a viable economic alternative, we were able to reduce poaching from 90% of nests to just 10%. Even better than that, the Drake Bay locals are now running the project on their own.
In Rio Oro, we have found that most poachers are coming from further afield, but community engagement remains vital for a number of reasons. The Gulfo Dulce coast, extending from Puerto Jimenez and south to Corcovado National Park has a string of important nesting beaches. To the north of Rio Oro, the non-profit organization Osa Conservation is protecting two beaches. To the south, local group COTORCO manages Carate Beach.
By adding the Corcovado Foundation project in Rio Oro we can all work together to have a completely projected zone. By cooperating with other NGOs and local communities we can discourage poachers from coming to the area in the first place.
We hope to make our 2016 season as successful as last year, when volunteers and staff were able to protect 99.3% of all nests on the beach from poaching and predation. This adds up to tens of thousands of olive ridley and green turtle hatchlings! Since only 1 in 1000 eggs makes it to adulthood, every nest we save is vital to the future population of Pacific sea turtles.
Even a small donation will be a big help, so we thank you in advance for your generosity, as do all these cute little guys below!
By Alejandra Monge | Executive Director
By Rob James | Program Director
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