A natural byproduct-and, in many cases, an integral aspect-of research efforts has been changing local attitudes towards wildlife and engaging the community in its conservation. Nowhere has this been more evident than on the Parque Nacional Las Baulas ("The Leatherbacks") beaches of Pacific Costa Rica. When Dr. Frank Paladino (Indiana-Purdue University) and Dr. James Spotila (Drexel University) first arrived in 1988 to study the leatherbacks on these major nesting beaches, they had to "rent" a territory from the local egg-poachers, and but a single leatherback hatchling made it to the sea. Years later, poachers have become proud park guards and guides, and virtually the entire community is invested in its leatherbacks.
"Local attitudes and awareness have improved immensely since we began working in Costa Rica," said Dr. Richard Reina (Monash University), another principal investigator of Costa Rican Sea Turtles. "Our education program through the local schools has fostered an understanding and appreciation for natural resources by the children. Local people are now appreciating that long-term survival and sustainability of natural resources including turtles is far more desirable than the short-term exploitation without constraint."
On Barbados, Dr. Julia Horrocks (University of the West Indies) helped local hotel owners see the value of dimming beach lights so as not to disorient hatchlings as they make their mad scramble to the sea. Tourists are fascinated by the drama and appreciate the hotels' support of conservation. In the Gulf of California, Dr. Jeffrey Seminoff (Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA) relies on former turtle-poachers to help find and monitor black turtle populations and has reached more than 200 enthusiastic schoolchildren with his local classes on sea turtle conservation. On St. Croix, local people were so impressed with the dedication of Earthwatch volunteers on Sandy Point that they started patrolling the island's other beaches to protect nesting turtles from poachers.
This spring, Earthwatch teams for the first time will assist an entirely community-based conservation program run by Dennis Sammy and Suzan Lakhan of Nature Seekers on Trinidad. This massive leatherback sea-turtle protection effort focuses on roughly 2,000 turtles on one of the Earth's major leatherback nesting beaches and is a showcase for combining conservation and ecotourism.