Volunteers race to extract water from their well before it's filled in

On August 30 Sylvester Feichtinger, owner of Agropecuaria Caletas S.A., the farming company that is demolishing the wetland beside the Caletas-Arío National Wildlife Refuge, had his employees destroy the well that Pretoma sea turtle volunteers dug in 2002 to supply fresh water to the project’s beachside camp.  According to Agropecuaria Caletas S.A. the well was destroyed because it was located on the company’s property.  Moments before the well was filled with sand, volunteers were able to extract a small quantity of water to be used in the camp’s day to day operations.

“This latest agressive action is another example of how Sylvester Feichtinger is bent on impeding Pretoma’s volunteers from protecting the area’s nesting sea turtle population and from monitoring the damage his company is causing to the wetland”, said Pretoma’s Miguel Gomez, ”but this shameful impediment to the volunteer’s basic right to fresh water will not stop Pretoma from pursuing its mission of protecting Playa Caletas.”  At this moment the project’s volunteers are already looking for a suitable area to dig a replacement well and continue with their work to protect the wetland and sea turtles.

Farming company workers fill in the well

If you haven’t already, please take a moment to send the petition to the Environmental Ministry and to Sylvester’s Hotel Casa Caletas calling for the immediate stoppage of the wetland’s destruction.  Invite your friends to join the Facebook group dedicated to this campaign.

Watch the video.

Monday, 16 of August, 2010

QUITO, AFP

Accoring to the Ecuadorian press, the captain and crew of the Costa Rican fishing boat Rosa 1 were arrested last week for illegal fishing activities in the Galapagos Island Marine Reserve, Ecuador.  Ecuadorian officials announced that the boat was carrying no less than 75 “finned” sharks.  Costa Rican fishing law states that all sharks must be landed with their fins naturally attached to their bodies.  Since the boat is Costa Rican, it’s logical to assume that it will eventually land its cargo in Puntarenas.  Costa Rica’s Fisheries Institute, Incopesca, asures that it inspects 100% of fisheries landings as a way to prevent shark finning from happening in this country.  But how effective is Incopesca’s system of inspection?

Other related cases:
In 2008, sacks of shark fins were found aboard the Kendy and the Franju III after they were spoted illegally fishing in the Cocos Island National Park’s Marine Protected Area.  When the two boats arrived in Puntarenas the fins were no longer onboard.  As the law only stipulates that fins be attached to the shark’s body when they are landed, and it does not prohibit the transportation of fins separated from bodies, no legal action was taken.
Indonesian/Costa Rican citizens Dian (23) and Fajar (36), international fishing vessel slaves that were freed by Costa Rican authorities at the Imperio Pesquero del Pacífico dock, explained to the Tico Times newspaper on June 4, 2010 that fishing crews rutinly fin sharks as the product represents and pay bonus for the crew.  The fishermen even showed a personal video to the press of crewmembers finning the animals.

  
Shark finning happens day in and day out in Costa Rica.  Quite simply, Incopesca lacks the initiative to enforce the law.  In fact, fisheries inspectors do not even have the authority to implement fishing regulations as they must first ask permission from the private dock owners before performing their inspections.

Click here to real article

Environment Commission DOES NOT vote on bill 17.383 to demote Las Baulas National Park.  Now, the decision lies with our new President, Laura Chinchilla.  Read more in the Leatherback Newsletter.

RANDALL ARAUZ
Goldman Environmental Prize, 2010
Recipient.  Central And South America

Speech pronounced during the Award Ceremony, at the San Francisco Opera House, April 19, 2010.

Randall Arauz receiving his award at the 2010 Goldman Prize ceremony / Credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

“When I started Pretoma over 14 years ago, I had no idea WE were going to go so far!  And I say “we”, because over the years a team of dedicated conservationists has performed the most diverse of tasks to fulfill our mission, which is to protect, and restore, endangered marine wildlife.

Sadly, shark finning is far from over.  Global shark population declines are estimated at 90%, mostly due to shark finning.  Governments are drafting “Shark Action Plans” in an effort to reverse the negative trend on shark populations.  But NOTHING has been done YET, to actually curtail shark mortality.

More than 100 foreign longline shark finning vessels still operate illegally in private docks of Costa Rica.  Recently, investigative journalists have exposed drug trafficking and indentured servitude alongside shark finning at these private docks, whose operators take advantage of lax customs enforcement.

So what’s next?

As with many pressing environmental problems, we have the scientific knowledge to solve them.  We must act now!

To restore shark populations, it’s going to take the protection of critical shark habitats through the creation of Marine Protected Areas, and it’s going to take strong fisheries regulations.

At PRETOMA we support small scale sustainable fishermen.  We won’t stand for huge industrial foreign fleets wiping out the world’s shark populations!

This is where everyone can help us make a difference.  I urge you to call on your representatives to make educated decisions, and support all measures possible to protect sharks.  Tell your friends about the problem, especially if you know politically influential people.  Sharks need all the help they can get, from all sectors of society.

I would like to thank the Goldman Foundation for this award.  It is the fruit of many years of hard work by many people.  I hope this award serves as an inspiration to other small NGOs working with few resources.  It is sometimes overwhelming to battle major economic interests on shoestring budgets, and disappointment may come easily, but we must hang in there!

I would like to thank my parents and siblings, my lovely wife Isabel and two kids, Daniel and Grisel, as well as Pretoma’s supporters and partners – Todd Steiner, Ricardo Soto, Georgina Domberger, Mario Boza, and 1999 Goldman Prize winner Jorge Varela.

Muchas gracias a todos.  Now, its time to get back to saving sharks!  I hope you decide to join us!”

—-Watch the Goldman Foundation’s Video detailing Randall Arauz and Pretoma’s work

Article only available in Spanish

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News
 
Millions of marine turtles have been killed over the past two decades through entrapment in fishing gear, according to a global survey (click here to read full study).
 
Described as the first global synthesis of existing data, the study found especially high rates of “bycatch” in the Mediterranean and eastern Pacific. Six of the seven sea turtle types are on the Red List of Threatened Species.

Writing in the journal Conservation Letters, researchers advocate much greater use of gear safe for turtles. These include circular hooks rather than the conventional J-shaped hooks on long fishing lines, and hatches that allow the reptiles to escape from trawls.

“We conservatively estimate that the true total is probably... in the millions of turtles taken as bycatch in the past two decades” Dr Bryan Wallace

Turtles must come to the surface to breathe. When they are caught in a net or on a fishing hook, they cannot surface, and drown. Lead researcher Bryan Wallace said the state of the world’s turtles was an indicator of the wider health of the oceans. “Sea turtles are sentinel species of how oceans are functioning,” he said. “The impacts that human activities have on them give us an idea as to how those same activities are affecting the oceans on which billions of people around the world depend for their own well-being.”

Dr Wallace works in the global marine division of Conservation International and at Duke University in the US.

The raw material from the study came from records of bycatch – incidental catches in fishing gear – from different regions of the world. Over the period 1990-2008, records showed that more than 85,000 turtles were snared. However, those records covered a tiny proportion of the world’s total fishing fleets. “Because the reports we reviewed typically covered less than 1% of all fleets, with little or no information from small-scale fisheries around the world, we conservatively estimate that the true total is probably not in tens of thousands, but in the millions of turtles taken as bycatch in the past two decades,” said Dr Wallace.

Three types of fishing gear are identified in the survey – long-lines, gillnets and trawls.

Modern long-line boats trail strings of hooks that can be 40km long, usually in search of high-value species such as tuna and marlin. Gillnets are usually stationary, and use mesh of a set size in an attempt to target certain species of fish.

The researchers suggest that several areas of the world account for particularly high levels of bycatch – the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean for all types of gear, together with trawling operations off the west coast of Africa.

Modifying fishing gear can have a dramatic impact on the size of bycatch. Shrimp trawls fitted with turtle excluder devices (TEDs) catch markedly fewer of the reptiles. A grid prevents anything large from entering the back portion of the net, and a hole above the grid allows accidentally snared animals such as turtles to escape. A number of countries now require that shrimp boats must use nets fitted with TEDs.

The circular long-line hooks also reduce bycatch of birds such as albatrosses. However, some fleets have resisted adopting selective gear because fishermen believe it will reduce their catch. In many parts of the developing world, the gear is not available.
 
Marine turtles face other significant threats. Debris in the oceans, such as plastic bags, can also cause drowning, while development in coastal regions can affect nesting and reproduction. Some turtles are still targeted for meat, and their shells used for tourist souvenirs.

Numbers of adult leatherbacks – the largest species, growing to more than 2m long and capable of journeys that span entire oceans – are thought to have declined by more than 75% between 1982 and 1996.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

On January 18 multiple conservation NGOs got together and placed a paid advertisement in La Nación, Costa Rica’s largest newspaper that detailed the imminent problems the country faces when it comes to protecting its marine resources and how the Costa Rican Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute’s (Incopesca) board of managers caters to private interests because it is composed of members of the fishing sector.  Six weeks later the fishing sector responded with its own paid advertisement.  Now Pretoma’s president Randall Arauz has responded with a personal letter to the editor, published on March 22.

An Urgent Reform

We, national environmental NGOs, declare that the root of many of the problems we find in marine conservation, like the slaughter of turtles by the shrimp trawl fleet, the illegal use of private docks by the international fishing fleet, illegal fishing around Cocos Island, is attributed to the conflict of interest that exists in the heart of Incopesca’s board of managers, an entity that’s composed of businessmen from the industrial fishing sector.

In response to our paid advertisement on January 18^th, the “fishing sector” published their own paid advertisement on February 25^th, claiming that we lie and are really enemies of Costa Rica.

It’s curious that now this sector does not except the data that Pretoma has collected on the environmental impact of the national shrimp fleet and how it calls these studies “manipulated”.  From 1995 to 2005, Pretoma undertook three studies on-board national trawls, in projects in cooperation with Incopesca, the Puntarenas’ Fishermen’s Union (CPP), and the Independent Shrimp Fishermen’s Union (Unipesca), financed at the time by national (Conicit and Micit) and international (USAid and NFWF) entities.

The “fishing sector” continues to affirm that the protection the shrimp trawl fleet provides to sea turtles constitutes a model for Latin America; however, the USA has embargoed the exportation of shrimp from Costa Rica four times since 1999.

It also affirms how it, along with environmental groups and the FAO, support the correct way to manage the use of shark resources in Costa Rica.  What they fail to say is how conservation entities support the system that requires sharks to be landed with their “fins naturally attached”, a system that Incopesca firmly opposed and it was necessary for the State Attorney to intervene on three separate occasions in order for its implementation.

If it was for Incopesca, Costa Rica would still be running around “tying” shark fins onto bodies and looking ridiculous in the process.

Speaking about the creation of Responsibly Fished Marine Areas and the intention to create one of these in the Golfo Dulce where the shrimping sector agrees not to trawl, what the fishing sector does not say is how it bought the political will through a payment of one million dollars to the owners of the 57 shrimp fishing licenses – despite there being only four boats that operate in the Golfo Dulce – as compensation to no longer fish there.  But as these are private funds, Incopesca’s board of managers denies any ties in this negotiation.

In 2008 only one foreign tuna boat was captured fishing illegally at Cocos Island, but a Minae, Coast Guard, and Marviva report notes that 905 national boats were sited illegally fishing during this same period, along with the confiscation of 217 fishing gear set-ups.

The good thing about the paid advertisement is that it strengthens our position because it clearly exposes that the “fishing sector” and Incopesca’s board of managers are one and the same.  Only by eliminating this conflict of interest will we arrive at real marine conservation.

Click here to read – Crontollership Court criticizes Minaet for poor of The Leatherback National Park (Spanish version only)

Article publish on Friday 5, 2010 by La Nación, a major newpaper in Costa Rica.

Prominent Sea Turtle Biologists Randall Arauz of Costa Rica and Dr. Wallace J. Nichols of Davenport, CA, Join Turtle Island Restoration Network Board

Olema, CA.  Turtle Island Restoration Network announced this week that Randall Arauz, director of the Costa Rican environmental organization PRETOMA, and Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, of Davenport, CA, have joined the organization’s board of directors.

Turtle Island Restoration Network is a nonprofit environmental organization that sponsors initiatives including the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network and the Got Mercury Campaign.

“I am very happy to welcome Randall Arauz and Dr. Wallace J. Nichols to the Turtle Island board.   They are leaders in the worldwide efforts to study and protect sea turtles and other marine wildlife and their dedication and persistence is inspiring.  Our board and staff are excited to engage J. and Randall in our expanding organization and community,” said Todd Steiner, founder and executive director of Turtle Island and its initiatives.

Biologist and activist Randall Arauz was born in Los Angeles, California.  Raised by the seaside, he developed a passion for the ocean.  At the age of 10, he returned with his parents to their native home in Costa Rica where he developed a deep affinity with the marine natural history of the country.  After receiving a degree in Biology at the University of Costa Rica, he served as the first director of the Las Baulas National Park of Costa Rica, established to protect the region’s endangered leatherback turtles.

From a base in San Jose, Costa Rica, Arauz began leading Turtle Island’s efforts in Central America in 1994.  He worked with Turtle Island director Todd Steiner to establish the first nesting beach protection programs that engaged travelers in protecting sea turtles and provided local communities economic alternatives to egg harvesting.  Today, the program protects 70,000 sea turtle eggs each year at five critical nesting beaches in Costa Rica.

Advocacy for protections for sea turtles and other marine species was a natural outgrowth of the hands-on protection program.   In 1997, Randall founded PRETOMA (an acronym for “Sea Turtle Restoration Project” in Spanish), a non-governmental organization focused on protecting Costa Rica’s sea turtles, sharks, and other marine species and their coastal and ocean habitats through advocacy and grassroots campaigns.

In 2003, PRETOMA secretly captured footage of a Taiwanese fishing vessel landing 30 tons of hacked-off shark fins at a private dock in the Costa Rican port of Puntarenas.  Approximately 30,000 sharks were killed to fill the ship’s hull.  The footage horrified both Costa Ricans and the international community and helped galvanize PRETOMA’s campaign for better enforcement of the nation’s laws against shark finning.

Randall won the United Kingdom’s most presitigious international environmental award in 2004, the Whitley Fund For Nature Award, in recognition of the importance of his work.   He has served as a technical advisor to the Costa Rican Ministry of Natural Resources and Foreign Affairs at important forums such as the United Nations Law of the Sea, and the Convention for Migratory Species..  He currently serves in both the  the IUCN Shark Specialist Group and the IUCN Sea Turtle Specialist Group.

“Working with Turtle Island Restoration Network and Todd Steiner really enabled me to become an effective advocate for marine species, rather than just a biologist,” said Randall Arauz. “Todd Steiner has supported my work and helped me move Costa Rica towards upholding its environmental image.  I am pleased to join the board of Turtle Island and support this organization’s future.”

Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, known as “J”, has founded marine protection organizations including Grupo Tortuguero, dedicated to restoring Pacific sea turtles, WILDCOAST to protect coastal wilderness and Ocean Revolution, working to inspire the next generation of ocean conservation leaders.  Recently, he co-founded SEEturtles.Org which engages people in conservation by helping them view sea turtles and other species in the wild.  J. holds a PhD from the University of Arizona, degrees from Duke and Depaugh Universities and was granted a Fulbright Fellowship.

Dr. Nichols also currently works with several universities and organizations to advance ocean protection, including California Academy of Sciences as a Research Associate.  His efforts have been featured in National Geographic, Scientific American, Time, Newsweek and other international media.

“I feel like I’ve undertaken the task of engaging communities of many different kinds in sea turtle and marine conservation.  Turtle Island’s work has been an inspiration to me and I look forward to being a part of the organization’s work to reach new communities and mobilize them as well,” says Dr. Nichols.  His work has taken him from coastal villages in Mexico where he works to demonstrate the value of saving sea turtles to artisanal fishermen, to Hollywood, where he worked with Leonardo DiCaprio on the environmental documentary, The 11th Hour.

Turtle Island Restoration Network is a tax-exempt organization with a mission to take swift and decisive action to protect and restore marine and aquatic species and their habitats, and to inspire people in communities all over the world to join us as active and vocal advocates.

The organization’s oldest and largest initiative, the Sea Turtle Restoration Project (www.seaturtles.org), was founded in 1989 to protect sea turtles and their ocean habitat globally.  The Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (www.spawnusa.org), founded in 1997, protects California’s largest remaining run of wild, endangered coho salmon in the Lagunitas Creek Watershed.  The organization’s Got Mercury Campaign (www.gotmercury.org), founded in 2002, informs people about the personal impacts of ocean pollution, and mercury in seafood in particular.  Turtle Island has received the highest four-star rating for financial effectiveness for five years in a row from CharityNavigator.Com.