 Second Training Course on Sea Turtle Conservation Activities
Aside from the start of the rainy season, summer brings hundreds of marine visitors to our beaches. Nature’s guests who return faithfully, year after year, to deposit in the sand, their hope of survival and the continuity of their kind: Sea Turtles that come to nest. Three of the seven species that return to Mexican coastlines, and nest on our beaches are: the Olive Ridley Turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea), The Black Sea Turtle (Chelonia agassizi) and the Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea); all in danger of extinction.
Protecting sea turtles is a collective community task: it requires the effort and participation of the entire society to succeed with the conservation programs. For this reason, Grupo Ecologistas de Nayarit, AC, has designed and prepared this training course addressed to operators of sea turtle camps, to biologists, to students and teachers of careers related to sea turtles.
The course, supported by SEMARNAT and CONANP, will take place at Rincón de Guayabitos, Nayarit from June 22nd to 24th. It will be led by Science Professor Adriana Laura Martínez, who is responsible for the National Sea Turtle Program, the Leatherback Project Coordinator and Sea Turtle Research Program: Priority Species of the National Commission for Protected Natural Areas (CONANP). Also collaborating will be: biologist Ana Rebeca Barragán Rocha, (Coordinator of the Centre for the Conservation of Sea Turtles and President of Association for the Study and Conservation of Sea Turtles, AC) and the M. V. Z. Miguel Ángel Flores Peregrina (responsible for the Sea Turtle Conservation Centers of Nayarit).
The agenda covers everything from the biological aspects of sea turtles, their current situation in Mexico, operational aspects of a sea-turtle release facilities, collection, handling and relocation of nests, management and release of offspring, standards of working with sea turtles, environmental education around the work of protection, working with tourists and schools. All culminating with issues of particular interest: the effects of global warming and the phenomenon of "La Niña" in the life cycle of sea turtles.
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