Protecting the Sea Turtles

by Jane Furchgott, President, Richland Center-Santa Teresa Sister City Project

Last December, I spent a night at the sea turtle nesting beach of Nicaragua's Chococente Wildlife Refuge. The atmosphere at the MARENA (Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources) guard station there felt lighter for the first time in the seven years I've been visiting Chococente. The guards were joking as they worked through the night on a report due the next day in Managua. The turtles were laying their eggs in peace -- no nests were being dug up, nor were there any other suspicious activities under cover of darkness.

Nicaragua is an important place for the world's endangered sea turtles. On the Pacific Coast are two of the few remaining mass nesting beaches for the olive ridley sea turtle: Chococente and La Flor. And along the Caribbean coast, green turtles feed in Nicaragua's extensive sea-grass beds. Critically endangered leatherback and hawksbill sea turtles also have small but crucial nesting areas in Nicaragua.

Autumn is the height of the nesting season for the olive ridleys. The female turtles come ashore by the thousands for synchronized arrivals (called "arribadas") at the Pacific Ocean beaches. Although designated as national wildlife refuges, these had been the site of increasing egg stealing and killing of turtles at sea to extract their eggs. Sea turtle eggs, thought to enhance male virility, are a popular bar snack in Central America and a major article of commerce.

In 2004, ecologist Sarah Otterstrom and I became outraged by the increasing assaults on turtles and their eggs. We wanted to stop fishermen from going out in their boats on purpose to slice open and extract eggs from the female olive ridley turtles massing offshore for the arribada.

Working with Todd Steiner of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project (Turtle Island Restoration Network, the best-known sea turtle activist organization) we wrote a letter to Nicaraguan President Bolanos about the problems with the fishermen. We also noted that the small quota of legal egg-harvesting was camouflaging the huge illegal egg trade. Along with our letter, we created an email campaign during which President Bolanos received over a thousand messages supporting the turtles.

The letters were acknowledged by the Ministry of the Environment, but nothing really changed at Chococente and La Flor.

In January 2005, I attended the International Sea Turtle Symposium to organize an informal meeting of scientists concerned about Nicaragua's sea turtles. They encouraged us to continue the letter campaign while enlarging its focus to the whole of Nicaragua, including the Caribbean coast, where the critically endangered hawksbills nest and green turtles are being killed for their meat beyond the point of sustainability.

In late September we sent a new letter to President Bolanos, including a long, detailed list of the critical sea turtle problems on both coasts of Nicaragua. Many international organizations, including WCCN, signed on in support of the letter.

During the late September arribada at La Flor, so many egg hunters stormed the beach that virtually all the eggs laid by six thousand turtles were taken. The few guards at the beach made no attempt to stop the depredation. Guard corruption and involvement in the illegal egg trade have been persistent at these Pacific refuges.

The scale of this invasion at the La Flor Refuge, reported in the Nicaraguan press, helped galvanize the government to finally take strong measures to protect the sea turtles. Soon afterwards, our letter's list of accusations was taken up by the Nicaraguan press. Within a week of the disastrous La Flor arribada, a series of articles about sea turtles appeared. A festival and concert featuring popular singers were held in Managua in support of the turtles. This constellation of events brought the plight of Nicaragua's sea turtles to public attention and pressured the government to take action.

On October 17, MARENA announced that for the present absolutely no egg-taking would be permitted in Nicaragua. The corrupt guards were removed, and the army, navy, and police collaborated with MARENA to successfully protect La Flor's sea turtles during the late October arribada. Protection at Chococente improved as well.

It wasn't until this past December that we finally received the official response to our second letter. We were amazed to read the Ministry of the Environment's official decree declaring a "total and indefinite ban on all products and subproducts of the sea turtles throughout the territory of Nicaragua." The Minister went on to say that Nicaragua needed financial help to carry out the protection. He also added that there was adverse reaction to the ban on the Caribbean coast.

The Caribbean green turtle fishery is an important source of income for indigenous and other communities of Nicaragua's east coast. Although harvesting was only allowed "for subsistence purposes", turtle meat was actually for sale in all the markets.

More than 11,000 green turtles were killed each year in Nicaragua, while researchers estimate that no more than 3000 can be harvested sustainably. Although MARENA is not enforcing the new law there, the Caribbean communites are understandably angry over the lack of discussion before the ban was imposed.

At present it's clear that the Nicaraguan government has made an effort to protect its sea turtles. MARENA has to readdress its policy for the Caribbean to allow more community participation in turtle management. My colleagues and I are working to connect the Nicaraguan government with the concerned communities and with organizations that may be able to give financial and technical support to Nicaragua's turtle conservation efforts.

Sea turtle conservation is difficult to address in a country with as much poverty as Nicaragua. In the past, each Chacocente family received a legal turtle egg quota that brought $8 into its austere household economy. It's hard to conceive of sea turtle activism except in the context of solidarity, similar to our Sister City Project, that brings improved livelihoods to the Chococente villagers. All the same, I'm encouraged by the changes at Chococente. MARENA's boat patrols are once again keeping fishing boats out of the Refuge's waters. For this moment at least, Chococente's sea turtles are being protected.