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Conservation

Conservation

We conserve the world’s most imperiled populations of sea turtles through research, habitat protection, education and advocacy.

How?

We develop integrated conservation strategies that link research questions to management needs, raise awareness and provide scientific data to inform sound policies to protect turtles.

Protection

TLT works to improve the quality and availability of protected habitats for leatherbacks and other sea turtles worldwide. Our team helped establish Parque Marino Nacional Las Baulas (Las Baulas National Park) in Costa Rica to protect the most important nesting beaches for the critically endangered East Pacific leatherback.

Female leatherbacks need safe nearshore habitat to recuperate between nesting events.

© Jason Bradley | BradleyPhotographic.com

Expanded Protections

Expanded protections are necessary to save East Pacific leatherbacks. TLT works with resource managers and local communities to enhance habitat protection at Las Baulas National Park and secondary nesting beaches in Costa Rica (Cabuyal, Naranjo, Junquillal, Nombre de Jesús, Ostional and Camaronal). We also advance science-driven efforts worldwide to protect nesting beaches for other leatherback subpopulations (e.g. South Africa) and other imperiled sea turtle populations (e.g. loggerheads in the Mediterranean).

Recognizing a need to move beyond beaches and protect ocean habitat critical to saving turtles, TLT works to expand protections in internesting areas, migration corridors and foraging areas. We use scientific data to support transboundary conservation agreements and expand protections for turtles within pelagic habitats where they can suffer harm from industrial fishing and shipping vessels.

Female leatherbacks need safe nearshore habitat to recuperate between nesting events.

© Doug Perrine | SeaPics.com

Education

The Leatherback Trust plays an instrumental role at Las Baulas National Park, supporting park rangers in their education programs, training and assisting local guides, educating schoolchildren on conservation and working together with the local community to live in harmony with leatherbacks and other sea turtles.

The goal of our education program is to increase community awareness about the role of sea turtles in coastal ecosystems and their value to the local economies. Outreach to schools, neighbors, tourists and businesses encourages their participation in conservation efforts at nearby nesting beaches and helps reduce threats to turtles.

Photo: Christian Díaz Chuquisengo gives a talk at Las Baulas National Park headquarters.

Mariana Del Brutto 2014

Good Neighbors

The Leatherback Trust educates local communities and businesses on actions they can take to protect sea turtles and their habitats. We invite neighbors around Las Baulas National Park in Playa Grande, Salinitas, Matapalo, Tamarindo, Lomas, Huacas and Villarreal to join us in beach clean-ups, native plant reforestation parties, dog training days, environmental film screenings and other fun activities related to turtle conservation.

Neighbors can also visit Goldring-Gund Marine Biology Station at Playa Grande to learn more. TLT scientists are pleased to share tips for simple changes in lighting and landscaping to protect turtles.

 

 

If you live or work near a nesting beach, you can follow these simple steps to help turtles:

  • Turn off lights, close curtains and only use exterior red lights at night
  • Restore native vegetation to reduce beach erosion and avoid introducing invasive plants
  • Keep cats indoors, leash dogs and respect park rules
  • Conserve water and maintain your septic system
  • Reduce plastic use, recycle and dispose of waste responsibly
 

Tourists visiting Las Baulas National Park and other nesting beaches can encourage hotels and restaurants to take action to protect turtles. Local residents and visitors can also bring recycling to Las Baulas National Park headquarters, which accepts aluminium, glass, cardboard and plastic separated into the appropriate bins.

Booking a tour with a local guide is another great way for visitors to support Las Baulas National Park and its neighbors. TLT offers training for park guides to increase ecotourism revenue to local communities and collaborates with park officials to generate new opportunities for ecotourism in the region.

Future Generations

The Leatherback Trust educates the next generation of sea turtle biologists and conservationists in communities near nesting beaches and foraging habitats. TLT believes that communities dedicated to conservation and connected to sea turtles can help to secure a future for the park and for leatherbacks. Our scientists initiated a conservation education program for children living near Las Baulas National Park in 1993. The goal is to give local schoolchildren the opportunity to directly experience nature and learn about local ecosystems.

Despite their proximity to critical habitat, many students and their teachers are unaware of the importance of their beaches or coastal waters to sea turtles. Almost none of children from the nearby town of Matapalo had ever seen a leatherback and some students had never been to the beach.

Working with local educators, we designed conservation-themed worksheets, skits, puppet shows and games to introduce children to leatherbacks, understand the importance of Las Baulas National Park and discuss the community’s role in protecting turtles. We invite ecotour guides and park guards visited classrooms to talk about their work. Students learn about the rich biodiversity within the park and the importance of protected areas to saving sea turtles.

Students from the Matapalo and Playa Grande schools are invited on an estuary tour, where they learn how to identify local species of animals and plants with field guides. They are also invited to see a nesting turtle during a night tour with a park guide. These experiences enable local children to develop an appreciation for the habitats around them and a sense of stewardship for sea turtles.

The Leatherback Trust also hosts students from primary and secondary schools in the US for site visits and field courses at the Goldring-Gund Marine Biology Station. We gather students from Costa Rica and the US to join in educational games and school improvement projects, inlcuding painting murals, and we join the parade through the streets during the annual Leatherback Turtle Festival.

TLT’s Outreach Coordinator gives a talk on leatherback nesting behavior.

Mariana Del Brutto

Advocacy

The Leatherback Trust uses traditional advocacy approaches to inform policy, influence industry and achieve protections for sea turtles. Advocacy activities include letter-writing campaigns, community organized events, presentations at meetings, conferences and workshops, distribution of printed materials and outreach through social media. Our mascot, Baulita Guanacaste, also joins advocacy efforts by presenting the viewpoint of a leatherback in public meetings.

TLT’s Costa Rican team seeks to increase public awareness and political will to support environmental conservation and protections for sea turtles. Our “Salvemos Baulas” campaign leveraged national support for leatherbacks to successfully counter proposals to downgrade Las Baulas National Park to a wildlife refuge and allow beachfront development. TLT and partner organizations in the “Frente para Nuestros Mares” won the battle to end destructive bottom trawling for shrimp, which endangers sea turtles and other marine life.

F. Paladino 2012

On Land

The goal of the Salvemos Baulas (Let’s Save Leatherbacks) campaign is the consolidation of Las Baulas National Park as a model protected area in Costa Rica. As a global leader in ecotourism, Costa Rica must ensure that development is carried out in a well-ordered and sustainable manner that safeguards the ecological integrity of the protected areas sustaining the national economy. TLT’s cross-disciplinary campaign joins business leaders, park officials, local communities, government representatives, academic and scientific institutions, and members of the press to improve awareness of the threats leatherbacks face and to support Las Baulas National Park.

The Salvemos Baulas campaign successfully challenged draft laws (17383, 16417, 16908 and 16916) proposed under the administration of Costa Rican President Arias Sanchez (2006-2010) to reduce or downgrade Las Baulas National Park.

Construction of hotels and homes at Playa Grande presents a threat to turtles.

© Kip Evans Photography | Mission Blue

The boundaries of Las Baulas National Park are defined to include land 125 meters above the high tide line. Illegal construction and clearing of land for real estate development threatens the integrity of the park. The Leatherback Trust has helped Las Baulas National Park acquire additional land through purchases, conservation easements and donations by concerned landowners.

Park regulations prohibit the cutting of vegetation to protect the beach from erosion and maintain a biological corridor between the dry forests in the coastal hills (e.g. Morro Hill); the coastal vegetation of Grande, Ventanas and Langosta beach; and the mangrove forests that surrounds the estuaries (e.g. Ventanas, San Francisco and Tamarindo). The dry forest ecosystem is particularly vulnerable to impacts from development, especially depletion of aquifers in the alluvial zone. A study by Dr. Mario Arias from the University of Costa Rica demonstrated that accelerated real estate development threatens quality and quantity of groundwater in the Tamarindo Estuary, Ventanas Estuary, Playa Grande and Tamarindo. This study further underscores a need to restrict development within the boundaries of Las Baulas National Park and large parts of the buffer zone.

A house under construction in the dry forest habitat of the Las Baulas National Park buffer zone.

© Jason Bradley | BradleyPhotographic.com

At Sea

The Frente por Nuestros Mares (Front for our Oceans) advocates for more sustainable fishing practices within Costa Rica. The Leatherback Trust, 5 other environmental organizations and 10 artisanal fishing cooperatives comprise the group, whose first priority was to end bottom trawling for shrimp. Bottom trawlers discard up to 9 times as much unwanted bycatch (including juvenile fish, sharks and turtles) for every shrimp captured, a destructive practice that is both harmful to the environment and damaging to artisanal fisheries. The Constitutional Court ruled that Costa Rica’s national fisheries agency, INCOPESCA, could not distribute any new permits for bottom trawlers.

Following this victory, the Frente por Nuestros Mares has embarked on a campaign to reform INCOPESCA. The agency is charged with serving the public interest and ensuring the sustainable use of fisheries resources. As part of the reform effort, the Frente por Nuestros Mares seeks to reduce the undue influence of industrial fisheries.

© Jason Bradley | BradleyPhotographic.com

In addition to our important work to protect leatherbacks in Costa Rican waters, TLT engages in other international sea turtle research and conservation efforts, involving several different species (e.g., loggerhead, green, olive ridley) within different ocean regions (Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, and the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas). Our data and analyses (e.g., peer-reviewed papers, technical reports) play a catalytic role in development, implementation and long-term monitoring of protected ocean habitats. TLT used findings from our Lost Years project to support designation of high-use habitats within the Central American Dome and the South Pacific Gyre as Ecological and Biological Sensitive Areas under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Photo: Many leatherbacks bear scars from entanglement in fishing gear.

© Doug Perrine | SeaPics.com

Conservation

Conservation

We conserve the world’s most imperiled populations of sea turtles through research, habitat protection, education and advocacy.

How?

We develop integrated conservation strategies that link research questions to management needs, raise awareness and provide scientific data to inform sound policies to protect turtles.

Protection

TLT works to improve the quality and availability of protected habitats for leatherbacks and other sea turtles worldwide. Our team helped establish Parque Marino Nacional Las Baulas (Las Baulas National Park) in Costa Rica to protect the most important nesting beaches for the critically endangered East Pacific leatherback.

Female leatherbacks need safe nearshore habitat to recuperate between nesting events.

© Jason Bradley | BradleyPhotographic.com

Expanded Protections

Expanded protections are necessary to save East Pacific leatherbacks. TLT works with resource managers and local communities to enhance habitat protection at Las Baulas National Park and secondary nesting beaches in Costa Rica (Cabuyal, Naranjo, Junquillal, Nombre de Jesús, Ostional and Camaronal). We also advance science-driven efforts worldwide to protect nesting beaches for other leatherback subpopulations (e.g. South Africa) and other imperiled sea turtle populations (e.g. loggerheads in the Mediterranean).

Recognizing a need to move beyond beaches and protect ocean habitat critical to saving turtles, TLT works to expand protections in internesting areas, migration corridors and foraging areas. We use scientific data to support transboundary conservation agreements and expand protections for turtles within pelagic habitats where they can suffer harm from industrial fishing and shipping vessels.

Female leatherbacks need safe nearshore habitat to recuperate between nesting events.

© Doug Perrine | SeaPics.com

Education

The Leatherback Trust plays an instrumental role at Las Baulas National Park, supporting park rangers in their education programs, training and assisting local guides, educating schoolchildren on conservation and working together with the local community to live in harmony with leatherbacks and other sea turtles.

The goal of our education program is to increase community awareness about the role of sea turtles in coastal ecosystems and their value to the local economies. Outreach to schools, neighbors, tourists and businesses encourages their participation in conservation efforts at nearby nesting beaches and helps reduce threats to turtles.

Photo: Christian Díaz Chuquisengo gives a talk at Las Baulas National Park headquarters.

Mariana Del Brutto 2014

Good Neighbors

The Leatherback Trust educates local communities and businesses on actions they can take to protect sea turtles and their habitats. We invite neighbors around Las Baulas National Park in Playa Grande, Salinitas, Matapalo, Tamarindo, Lomas, Huacas and Villarreal to join us in beach clean-ups, native plant reforestation parties, dog training days, environmental film screenings and other fun activities related to turtle conservation.

Neighbors can also visit Goldring-Gund Marine Biology Station at Playa Grande to learn more. TLT scientists are pleased to share tips for simple changes in lighting and landscaping to protect turtles.

 

 

If you live or work near a nesting beach, you can follow these simple steps to help turtles:

  • Turn off lights, close curtains and only use exterior red lights at night
  • Restore native vegetation to reduce beach erosion and avoid introducing invasive plants
  • Keep cats indoors, leash dogs and respect park rules
  • Conserve water and maintain your septic system
  • Reduce plastic use, recycle and dispose of waste responsibly
 

Tourists visiting Las Baulas National Park and other nesting beaches can encourage hotels and restaurants to take action to protect turtles. Local residents and visitors can also bring recycling to Las Baulas National Park headquarters, which accepts aluminium, glass, cardboard and plastic separated into the appropriate bins.

Booking a tour with a local guide is another great way for visitors to support Las Baulas National Park and its neighbors. TLT offers training for park guides to increase ecotourism revenue to local communities and collaborates with park officials to generate new opportunities for ecotourism in the region.

Future Generations

The Leatherback Trust educates the next generation of sea turtle biologists and conservationists in communities near nesting beaches and foraging habitats. TLT believes that communities dedicated to conservation and connected to sea turtles can help to secure a future for the park and for leatherbacks. Our scientists initiated a conservation education program for children living near Las Baulas National Park in 1993. The goal is to give local schoolchildren the opportunity to directly experience nature and learn about local ecosystems.

Despite their proximity to critical habitat, many students and their teachers are unaware of the importance of their beaches or coastal waters to sea turtles. Almost none of children from the nearby town of Matapalo had ever seen a leatherback and some students had never been to the beach.

Working with local educators, we designed conservation-themed worksheets, skits, puppet shows and games to introduce children to leatherbacks, understand the importance of Las Baulas National Park and discuss the community’s role in protecting turtles. We invite ecotour guides and park guards visited classrooms to talk about their work. Students learn about the rich biodiversity within the park and the importance of protected areas to saving sea turtles.

Students from the Matapalo and Playa Grande schools are invited on an estuary tour, where they learn how to identify local species of animals and plants with field guides. They are also invited to see a nesting turtle during a night tour with a park guide. These experiences enable local children to develop an appreciation for the habitats around them and a sense of stewardship for sea turtles.

The Leatherback Trust also hosts students from primary and secondary schools in the US for site visits and field courses at the Goldring-Gund Marine Biology Station. We gather students from Costa Rica and the US to join in educational games and school improvement projects, inlcuding painting murals, and we join the parade through the streets during the annual Leatherback Turtle Festival.

TLT’s Outreach Coordinator gives a talk on leatherback nesting behavior.

Mariana Del Brutto

Advocacy

The Leatherback Trust uses traditional advocacy approaches to inform policy, influence industry and achieve protections for sea turtles. Advocacy activities include letter-writing campaigns, community organized events, presentations at meetings, conferences and workshops, distribution of printed materials and outreach through social media. Our mascot, Baulita Guanacaste, also joins advocacy efforts by presenting the viewpoint of a leatherback in public meetings.

TLT’s Costa Rican team seeks to increase public awareness and political will to support environmental conservation and protections for sea turtles. Our “Salvemos Baulas” campaign leveraged national support for leatherbacks to successfully counter proposals to downgrade Las Baulas National Park to a wildlife refuge and allow beachfront development. TLT and partner organizations in the “Frente para Nuestros Mares” won the battle to end destructive bottom trawling for shrimp, which endangers sea turtles and other marine life.

F. Paladino 2012

On Land

The goal of the Salvemos Baulas (Let’s Save Leatherbacks) campaign is the consolidation of Las Baulas National Park as a model protected area in Costa Rica. As a global leader in ecotourism, Costa Rica must ensure that development is carried out in a well-ordered and sustainable manner that safeguards the ecological integrity of the protected areas sustaining the national economy. TLT’s cross-disciplinary campaign joins business leaders, park officials, local communities, government representatives, academic and scientific institutions, and members of the press to improve awareness of the threats leatherbacks face and to support Las Baulas National Park.

The Salvemos Baulas campaign successfully challenged draft laws (17383, 16417, 16908 and 16916) proposed under the administration of Costa Rican President Arias Sanchez (2006-2010) to reduce or downgrade Las Baulas National Park.

Construction of hotels and homes at Playa Grande presents a threat to turtles.

© Kip Evans Photography | Mission Blue

The boundaries of Las Baulas National Park are defined to include land 125 meters above the high tide line. Illegal construction and clearing of land for real estate development threatens the integrity of the park. The Leatherback Trust has helped Las Baulas National Park acquire additional land through purchases, conservation easements and donations by concerned landowners.

Park regulations prohibit the cutting of vegetation to protect the beach from erosion and maintain a biological corridor between the dry forests in the coastal hills (e.g. Morro Hill); the coastal vegetation of Grande, Ventanas and Langosta beach; and the mangrove forests that surrounds the estuaries (e.g. Ventanas, San Francisco and Tamarindo). The dry forest ecosystem is particularly vulnerable to impacts from development, especially depletion of aquifers in the alluvial zone. A study by Dr. Mario Arias from the University of Costa Rica demonstrated that accelerated real estate development threatens quality and quantity of groundwater in the Tamarindo Estuary, Ventanas Estuary, Playa Grande and Tamarindo. This study further underscores a need to restrict development within the boundaries of Las Baulas National Park and large parts of the buffer zone.

A house under construction in the dry forest habitat of the Las Baulas National Park buffer zone.

© Jason Bradley | BradleyPhotographic.com

At Sea

The Frente por Nuestros Mares (Front for our Oceans) advocates for more sustainable fishing practices within Costa Rica. The Leatherback Trust, 5 other environmental organizations and 10 artisanal fishing cooperatives comprise the group, whose first priority was to end bottom trawling for shrimp. Bottom trawlers discard up to 9 times as much unwanted bycatch (including juvenile fish, sharks and turtles) for every shrimp captured, a destructive practice that is both harmful to the environment and damaging to artisanal fisheries. The Constitutional Court ruled that Costa Rica’s national fisheries agency, INCOPESCA, could not distribute any new permits for bottom trawlers.

Following this victory, the Frente por Nuestros Mares has embarked on a campaign to reform INCOPESCA. The agency is charged with serving the public interest and ensuring the sustainable use of fisheries resources. As part of the reform effort, the Frente por Nuestros Mares seeks to reduce the undue influence of industrial fisheries.

© Jason Bradley | BradleyPhotographic.com

In addition to our important work to protect leatherbacks in Costa Rican waters, TLT engages in other international sea turtle research and conservation efforts, involving several different species (e.g., loggerhead, green, olive ridley) within different ocean regions (Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, and the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas). Our data and analyses (e.g., peer-reviewed papers, technical reports) play a catalytic role in development, implementation and long-term monitoring of protected ocean habitats. TLT used findings from our Lost Years project to support designation of high-use habitats within the Central American Dome and the South Pacific Gyre as Ecological and Biological Sensitive Areas under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Photo: Many leatherbacks bear scars from entanglement in fishing gear.

© Doug Perrine | SeaPics.com

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The Leatherback Trust Inc. is a US 501(c)3 non profit organization – EIN 22-3741033