Sea Turtle Conservation & Environmental Education

As the sea turtle conservation program celebrates its tenth birthday, the 2015 season promises to be the most ambitious that the program has ever attempted. In addition to providing continued support to help the community of Drake Bay to protect their sea turtles, the program will set up a new field station at the remote Río Oro beach – the most important sea turtle nesting beach in the Osa Peninsula. The program is also applying to monitor the sea turtles nesting on Sirena beach inside the Corcovado National Park, and so one nesting beach could become three during 2015!

This is hugely exciting progress and successful efforts have been made to find funding for these projects; but as ever there are big gaps, and the program looks to private donations to cover those costs that grant providers just don’t like to fund.

We need money in order to provide a stipend to the biologists who selflessly provide their time and efforts as Coordinators. These guys go beyond the call of duty on a daily basis to ensure that the turtles are protected and the program’s objectives are delivered, and we simply want to cover their expenses during their stay. They deserve so much more.

There is currently no funding at all for the Drake Bay project in 2015, and so we seek donations in order to offer a small salary to those locals who dedicate their time to patrol the beaches, guard the hatchery at night, and look after the international volunteers.

We also need to find money for food and delivery costs, and for the transportation of materials and waste (and volunteers) to and from the remote Río Oro field station, since this will add up to be a huge expense over nine months.

Private donors are uniquely placed to support our efforts in this way, so please help us to start the campaign with everything we need to make it a success. Join the effort alongside our volunteers and the local community to bring an end to poaching in the Osa!

Thank you!

Drake Beach

Since 2006, the program has protected 90% of sea turtle nests in Drake Bay. Through the establishment of a dedicated community association, ACOTPRO, and the implementation of environmental education in local schools, the program has also succeeded in changing the attitudes of local people toward their natural resources. With support from the program, ACOTPRO has now developed its own homestay network, volunteer program and several community-based tours, and the association is prepared to assume responsibility for the conservation effort in Drake Bay. It is anticipated that the 2015 nesting season will be the last directly supported by the program.

Río Oro Beach

Having bourn witness to these achievements in Drake Bay, the Ministry for the Environment (MINAET) and the Corcovado Sea Turtle Conservation Committee (COTORCO) have invited the program to protect sea turtles nesting in the Río Oro National Wildlife Refuge, and emulate the successes of the program in Drake Bay with the community of Río Oro/Carate. This will be the first time ever that the sea turtles will have been routinely protected at this extremely vulnerable and globally important Olive Ridley Lepidochelys olivacea) and Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) nesting site.

Sirena Beach

This small stretch of sand located at the heart of the Corcovado National Park is a nesting habitat for Olive Ridley, Green and Hawksbill sea turtles, and is a wild ecosystem situated far away from any towns or villages. How many turtles nest here, how many nests do they lay, and what is the impact of natural predators on the population? Nobody knows! And so MINAET have offered the opportunity to conservation organizations to compete for the honor of answering these questions. The program aims to win this competition in 2015 and looks forward to creating new knowledge about this pristine wilderness.