Last but not least, the loss of pristine nesting habitat is reducing the rate of repopulation of the species as beaches are consumed for tourism or industrial projects.  Coastal development brings with it invasive dune plant species that make nest digging difficult.  Off-road vehicles run rampant, compacting the sand and suffocating eggs.  Nocturnal lighting from hotels, homes and streets can confuse the hatchlings’ ability to navigate safely and quickly toward the ocean.  And it can be only assumed that global climate change will further contribute to this loss of habitat if, as projected, a substantial sea rise occurs. 

Conservation Programs—Grupo Tortuguero de las Californias (GTC)

Community-directed resource conservation continues to be central to GTC, whose leaders are chosen biannually from local community members.  Members have benefitted through their work and involvement in GTC and new and dynamic activists have emerged from the least expected places.  Perhaps Grupo Tortuguero’s greatest accomplishment has been the interconnectedness of communities and organizations that it has fostered both on a local and international level.

Environmental Education.  This is a key component of GTC’s work, which uses the sea turtle as a flagship species, linking its success to the health of both marine and terrestrial environments as well as to the economic success of the region.  Its national and international media campaigns have been innovative and many have addressed the myths surrounding turtles in Mexican society.  Its workshops, scientific meetings and environmental festivals have helped to increase participant knowledge about the environment, current environmental challenges, and how individuals and communities can take proactive measures in its stewardship. 

In January 2008, its annual meeting was held in Loreto, BCS concurrently with RETOMALA (a network from Sinaloa) and the 25th Annual Symposium of the International Sea Turtle Society with over 1200 tortugueros in attendance.  

At that meeting, a very positive action was discussed that marks the success of GTC's conservation program.  As a result of his experience with GTC fisherman and scientists from Mexico, the US and Japan, the captain of a major Mexican fishing fleet working off the peninsula’s Pacific coast made a landmark decision.  He voluntarily retired the fleet’s long lines, thereby making a commitment to the protection of at least 700 Loggerheads yearly that would have been killed by his fleet alone within a key turtle feeding hotspot.  It is further hoped that local groups will be able to pressure the Mexican government to declare their area a national marine refuge, off limits to further large-scale commercial fishing harmful to turtles.

Grupo Tortuguero celebrated its 13th annual meeting in La Paz, BCS in January 2011 (read short article in Spanish). At this meeting, scientific papers and monitoring project results were presented. In Puerto López Mateos, for example, it was reported that there was a 60% decrease in the annual number of beached turtles that had been killed in nets. There had also been an increase in the degree of local involvement with nine fishing Co-Ops and a total of 15 organizations now involved. Other projects, in Loreto bay and Laguna San Ignacio, have studied the distribution of turtle populations in those places to determine patterns of use by both humans and turtles. The goal is decrease the impact and mortality of turtles in those areas and help determine if further delimitation of protected or closed areas is warranted. In another community, Punta Abreojos, researchers want to look at the effects of heavy metals on sea turtles, a possible explanation for the apparently stunted size of specimens captured there.

The yearly meeting continues to be a focal point for sharing information and forming and/or strengthening inter-community and international alliances. From the original 45 people who formed GTC in 1999, the yearly meeting has grown and in 2011 attendance topped 350. Today, across the two states of the Baja California peninsula, Sonora, Sinaloa and California, USA, GTC works directly with 15 communities located in feeding or foraging areas and 22 communities within the nesting areas.

Members represent at least: 20 countries; 13 local and ten international associations; 18 institutions and universities; and ten bi-national governmental agencies. ¡Viva la Tortuga!

New for August 2011:
Visit this page where you can watch short video interviews we took at GTC 13 in La Paz. Bilingual scripts are provided as you watch. See the real people involved in turtle conservation talk about their work and passion.