By Laura Bijnsdorp
Costa Rica is often praised and ranked amongst the world leaders when it comes to tackling environmental issues. Costa Rica has protected approximately 28% of its land in national parks, reserves and wildlife refuges.
A friend of mine had volunteered at a turtle conservation program in the past and her stories were stuck in the back of my mind. The idea of volunteering my time for a week, experiencing a well-run conservation program and working with Costa Rican wildlife close up and personal seemed like a great experience. So when I decided to go travelling for five months through Central America, I had also researched volunteering possibilities in the area.
Long lists of programs pop up on Google when you type in “turtle volunteer Costa Rica.” Knowing that some programs are more of an attraction than an actual conservation project, I sifted through a lot of text before I decided on Reserva Playa Tortuga (RPT).
RPT describes itself as a non-profit biological research and education centre formed in 2009 by community members (citizen scientists) and Costa Rican scientists. It is situated in a tropical rainforest at the mouth of the Terraba River, which is a part of the Terraba Sierpe National Wetlands and a RAMSAR site just outside of Marino Ballena National Park.
The website explained that RPT aims to contribute to the fields of biological research and science based conservation management as well as fomenting a culture of environmental conservation in the areas influenced by the National Wetlands of the Terraba-Sierpe basin. RPT develops its own primary research projects to fulfil this mission as well as working in cooperation with many governmental, NGO, and academic institutions such as Georgia Sea Turtle Center in Jekyll Island, Georgia, USA.
The fact that RPT was foremost a research centre drew me in. It helped me trust that I would learn something during my time there and also truly contribute. RPT volunteers help to patrol the 1KM long Playa Tortuga at night. The other projects volunteers could help with included mammal population counts, bird population counts, caiman tagging, environmental education activities, research, butterfly gardening and recycling.
Oscar, the kind director of RPT, was very quick in answering my mail and instructing me on how to take the bus to Ojochal. It was a long journey – about nine hours – so I was happy to see a friendly face waiting at the bus stop for me in Ojochal. Ashley, who led me to the research centre, had been in Ojochal working as a research field assistant for RPT a few months already. Back in the United States, she was a member of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. She was at RPT to help with existing programs and to conduct a sand erosion study.
Once I was settled in, the first thing I did as a volunteer was to tag along to record data for this study. Playa Tortuga was just a five-minute walk away; it took my breath away when the jungle disappeared and the sea appeared. It was low tide, so the beach stretched out hundreds of metres wide. I would soon notice how astounding the changing of tides was in this area. As we walked along the beach, I saw huge uprooted trees lying in the sand.
Together with volunteers Holly and Harry, Ashley started to measure the high sand walls to assess the rate of erosion. Most importantly, this would allow RPT to understand the relationship between a changing beach and nesting sea turtles. Ashley explained that within two months of research, over 1300m2 of beach had been lost. The reserve even had to move their beach camp and turtle-hatchery, as both would have been washed away. RPT had never had to deal with this amount of erosion. I was told that erosion occurs naturally, but that rising sea levels could also be the reason for this heavy increase.
The loss of beach and high sea walls both could affect the frequency and success of turtle nesting. If a turtle comes up the beach and can’t find a good spot to nest, she will return to the water (this is called a false crawl). Even within the short week I spent at Playa Tortuga, I saw dramatic changes. New rivers could form within hours and four-storey tall trees would be swept away which meant that every night, I would encounter a different landscape on our walks up and down the beach, hoping to spot a turtle.
Unfortunately, I did not see a turtle in my time at Playa Tortuga. But I did learn a lot about them. I also heard it was a “bad season” overall across the pacific coast. Playa Tortuga normally would count between 80 and 120 nests each season, and while I was there, which was near the end of the 2016 season, they had only counted 15. At first, I assumed this was because of the aforementioned heavy erosion of the beach, but Ashley explained that by then, they would at least be seeing “false crawls” – but turtles weren’t even coming up to try and nest this year it seemed. Why? They weren’t sure.
Costa Rica is home to stretches of lush turtle nesting beaches all along its coastline. The global populations of sea turtles are declining at an alarming rate. For example, Hawksbill global population, at about 8,000 nesting females, is one of the most frightening scenarios. The hawksbill’s population has been cut by more than 80% in just 100 years. The other sea turtle numbers are not as low, but all are in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Consider that their populations used to include millions and millions of sea turtles. These creatures are not doing well.
On Tortuga Beach, mainly Olive Ridley Sea Turtles nest. Despite being the most abundant of the seven species of sea turtles, Olive Ridley sea turtles are listed as vulnerable by the IUCN due to a myriad of threats, including climate change, disease, habitat destruction, egg predation, plastic pollution, coastal development and indiscriminant fishing gear.
In Costa Rica, as in many other countries, a direct threat are poachers who kill adult turtles for their meat, fat and shells, and dig up turtle eggs. In the past, turtle eggs were consumed by communities as part of their diet and one could argue that it was part of Costa Rican culture. Yet this was done is smaller quantities, before people realized that good cash could be made from selling both meat and the eggs, which are considered delicacies, and the shells, which are turned into souvenirs.
Oscar: “When something only becomes about money, it’s no longer cultural. Seeing how low numbers of turtles are in the world; if you are abiding by our laws, buying any part of a turtle is unethical and illegal.”
It's estimated that only one in 1,000 hatchlings will survive to adulthood. The survivors mature slowly, it can take up to 40 or 50 years before a sea turtle is ready to mate and reproduce. Between slow maturation and a high death rate, it is a very real possibility that these endangered creatures will become extinct. It is crucial for us to realize this and take action to help and protect them.
While conserving turtles is of utmost importance, one can also argue that it is unethical for organizations such as RPT to use volunteers to “patrol” the beaches. Getting in the way of poachers, who make their living by collecting sea-turtles and eggs, could have its dangers. The egg trade has been linked to drug trafficking and organized crime. Certain beaches where these patrols happen have a high degree of drug-related activity. As poaching is against the law, it should be the responsibility of the police to patrol beaches and enforce the country’s regulations, instead of scientists, conservation groups and volunteers.
The discussion became more heated when, in 2013, Jairo Mora Sandoval, a Costa Rican environmentalist, was murdered just before midnight on May 30. Mora and four female volunteers were abducted by a group of masked men. The women eventually escaped and informed the police. Mora’s bound and beaten body was found on the beach the next morning. In January, a court found seven men accused of Mora’s murder not guilty, based on reasonable doubt. Four of the men, however, were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for assault, kidnapping and aggravated robbery for a crime that occurred on the same beach shortly before Mora's murder.
Although Playa Tortuga doesn’t see a huge number of nesting turtles, poaching does occur. I felt safe walking along the beach every night in Playa Tortuga with our guide and other volunteers, yet the question of whether I truly was safe remained. Oscar and his team have a good relationship with the surrounding community. He explained to me that they never confront a poacher, even if they see him/her with sea turtle or at a nest: “We are foremost a research centre, and collect the eggs to be able to get proper data. It is an added bonus that we can save the same eggs from the rising sea levels, predation and poaching. Our centre takes the safety of our staff and volunteers really seriously. If it was dangerous, such as on the beaches where there is drug-related activity, we would have shut down the turtle-patrol project. Tackling the poaching issue is a difficult one; but first of all, I do strongly believe that we do need a lot more police involvement to prevent activity such as poaching.”
“Yet if we as volunteers are getting in the way of the livelihood of people, there is always some danger,” I thought to myself. At the same time, I also truly believed that it was a worldwide responsibility to protect these amazing and important animals from extinction. As I was mulling over the topic, I figured education could be the key; maybe if campaigns were used to explain the importance of sea-turtle conservation and more material on the topic was presented in schools, the market for sea turtle related products would get smaller. But I also realized that as with many environmental-issues, often greed, self-interest and ignorance of humans get in the way of solving problems such as declining turtle populations.
Although I did not spot any turtles, the night-patrols were magical. In low tide, you could see light reflections of the moon on the wet sand and bioluminescence shining in puddles as you stepped into them. During the rising tide, patrolling became an adventure, during which you had to wade through rivers and beat the clock before high tide truly set in and paths became unnavigable. My favourite night was during a thunderstorm, which featured huge flashes of lighting up the dark vast sand of Playa Tortuga.
The rest of my time was filled with walking through the jungle to spot mammals and count mammal tracks, during which Oscar taught us lots about the local flora and fauna. Melissa, the organization’s environmental educator, took us to the butterfly garden, where we helped collect caterpillars, trim the plants, plant some new plants and collect data. Adrian, the charming marine biologist at RPT, took us on a long bird-watching walks.
Ashley and Adrian also took me on my favourite activity: Caiman Tagging. We didn’t find many caiman, although I had seen and almost stepped on a few during my night patrols on the beach. It was exciting to be in the middle of the jungle at night and to trudge through the muddy swamps, knowing you could encounter a caiman or crocodile. Despite the lack of reptiles, we did find a lot of frogs that apparently love mating in the rain. The frogs definitely had better ideas about what we should have been doing on a dark, rainy night!
But it wasn’t all work at RPT; we also got plenty of time off for ourselves. One day, I took advantage of this to go horseback riding in Dominical. I had heard that there was a gorgeous waterfall at the end of the horseback-riding trail. So on one of my last days, bright and early, volunteers Holly, Zara and I headed to the horseback riding ranch, where the tours are done by a family-owned company; Don Lulo and Doña Ruth, who settled in the area 49 years ago to work on a farm. Slowly they bought pieces of the land they worked on, expanding to the 18-hectare property they own today, including the land on which the Nauyaca Waterfalls are located.
About 15 years ago, the family decided to reforest the land once used for farming and focus on ecotourism. My horse Popeye was a sweetheart. At the end of the trail, I was completely surprised at the beauty of the 65-metre two-tiered Nauyaca Waterfalls. Erick, the grandson of Don Lulo and Doña Ruth, was a great tour guide. He even convinced me to overcome my fear of heights, climb up the slippery rocks of the waterfall, feel the force of the cascading water and jump in!
The excursion to Nuayaca Falls was the perfect way to end my time at RPT. A big thank you to Oscar, Ashley, Adrian, Melissa, the guides and all the volunteers who made my Ojochal experience an amazing one!
For more information about RPT, surf to www.reservaplayatortuga.org. Next week: volcano hikes, strawberry fields and more waterfall adventures in Costa Rica!
Follow Laura’s travels on Instagram: @laurasxm
