Conservation in Costa Rica

I have been extremely passionate about marine life, in particularly turtles, for as long as my small memory can remember. I have a complete fascination for anything that is wild and self sustaining. To me it is a natural wonder which no man could replicate. So when my awesome friend Alana suggested we travel to Costa Rica to take part in a volunteer project with the main focus of conserving critically endangered turtles on the rugged beaches of Ostional I hardly thought, I just said YES!.

Costa Rica to me is the epitome of beauty in every way, the people, the scenery, the flora and fauna, the food and last but not least the tequila!. After a long, hot and bumpy bus journey we had arrived in the small, dusty village of Ostional. Feeling extremely dazed and slightly anxious of the unknown we were all welcomed by a group of healthy and sun kissed looking people ready to take us off to our chosen host families.

I was greeted by a young boy Kielor, 14 who was son of Flor and Louis. At first he looked slightly disappointed that I wasn't a 6 foot Swedish blonde but he instead was stuck with a four foot extra from the lord of the rings trilogy!. We had a brief if a little strained conversation using my broken Spanish whilst like a young gentleman he kindly offered to carry my bags. It was quite probable that he noticed the buckets of sweat dripping down my forehead and the look of 'dead woman walking' on my face!

5 minutes down the dirt tracks was a quaint looking casa, this is where I would call home for the next 2 weeks. Kielor showed me to my room and put my bags on the comfy looking bed, which I wanted to climb into immediately. He introduced to my host family and Flor the mother decided she would have to feed me straight away. My first meal consisted of a vast amount of beans, rice and grilled plantain; this would be more than fine with me for coming weeks as it tasted amazing.

This was not my first experience of staying with a host family and I have come to believe it is the best way to learn about a countries tradition and to absorb its culture. In this small village on such an isolated peninsula they show such admirable self sufficiency without exhausting their land. They bring life back to the pleasurable basics and everything moves as such a relaxed pace. They show strong connections in their family units as most of their extended family live on the same street. Their house was always full of people and I could endlessly hear their constant chatter and laughter.

To the main reason why we ventured to Ostional was of course because of the turtles. There are three particular species which visit the beaches here to make their nests and lay their hopeful eggs. The olive Ridley who is a much more regular visitor to these shores, the Leatherback who is extremely rare and a near mystery to our seas, and finally the Green Pacific who can also be seen regularly off the coast of Queensland. All of these wonderful creatures are endangered mainly due to us humans putting pressures on their precious environment.

For example a huge problem is overfishing and bycatch in which turtles and other marine species get caught in enormous trawler nets and so drown. There is illegal poaching of their eggs, pollution and lastly climate change; the intense sun heats up the sands temperature well over what the turtle eggs can survive and therefore never hatch.

We came to Costa Rica with the aim of trying to reduce these preventable risks, to enable that all species are given half a chance of surviving to sexual maturity. Our efforts consisted of nightly patrols of the beaches to ward off poachers, the guarding and monitoring of the Leatherback hatchery whereby if patrollers spotted a Leatherback female nesting we would collect her eggs whilst she was still laying and swiftly relocate them to our shaded hatchery in order for them to have a higher hatching success rate. We also participated in beach cleanups and conservation talks.

I have learnt so much about turtles over this period of time and I think if it's possible I love them even more. I am in ore of their natural instincts, their vast migrations' and the fact they come back to nest on the very same shores they were born on after travelling thousands of miles. They have seen the dinosaurs come and go and I believe because of that they wholly deserve to live on for as long as this planet exists, they definitely own that right. I am just so happy that myself, Alana and Jono have been to the unknown, beautiful village of Ostional to witness one of Mother Nature's most amazing animals of the sea.

Lolly.

Check out all our photos here.