The Planeterra Foundation’s sea turtle project (Playa Matapalo, Costa Rica) is a science-based conservation program, which was created with the purpose of protecting female sea turtles, nests, and hatchlings laid on the Matapalo beach, against poachers and natural and introduced predators. A turtle hatchery protects the eggs of this endangered species and the program has ensured the survival of the sea turtles with a large increase in the number of hatchlings in the area. Local staff and volunteers also collect information about nesting activities that is shared with the community and local and regional authorities.

Travelers participating in the Project Costa Rica voluntour trip can help the sea turtle conservation efforts by carrying out beach patrols, monitoring of the baby turtles, general infrastructure maintenance, data collection, beach clean-ups, as well as counting baby turtles and releasing them.

“The trip was fantastic. [T]he project it was by far my favorite experience of the entire trip… Wilson, the staff, and other volunteers were wonderful, everyone was there for the same reason and all worked hard. I don’t think it’s a vacation all types of people would enjoy, you need to be flexible, easy going, willing to go without some luxuries (such as hot water), but worth every minute of it if you have some of those qualities. We did work hard – making sandbags, building a sandbag barrier to protect the hatchery, rock picking for the garden, kitchen cleanup duty, night patrols, and hatchery watch duties – but we also had an amazing amount of down time for ourselves. We spent most of that time on the beach! Alonzo taught us how to surf, he was amazing the entire trip! I hope to do future trips with him as the leader.

We didn’t see any turtles come to shore and lay eggs but we did find nests! When a nest was found we would dig up the eggs, very, very carefully. Take a lot of data, then take them to the hatchery and try to re-create the nest in the hatchery. It was exciting to be a part of the process. With the nests that are there right now the turtles should be hatching the week of Aug. 25th through Sept. 14.

It was a fantastic experience, it was very hard for me to come home and I can’t wait to go back.”

- Tracey Sutcliffe, Planeterra Costa Rica project participant

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