Networks

Conservation Programs

One of the best ways to establish synergy or complement projects is the establishment of strategic networks between organizations, with the main goal of increase its conceptual and executive capacity.

PROFILE OF A SUCCESFULL NETWORK

Success is the achievement of the organization´s goals and a network should have the following profile:

Objectives:

  • It is created as an answer to the common needs of the member organizations.
  • It has clear and adequate objectives.
  • It is considered an instrument to achieve its goals, it is not a goal by itself.
  • Works with organizations that already exist and have acquired internal cohesion and external legitimacy.

Coordination

  • Represents homogeneous interests between member organizations.
  • Integrates but does not subordinate the member organizations.
  • Supports and facilitates planning and institutional strengthening processes.

Efficiency

  • Maintains an efficient administrative structure.

Legitimacy

  • It is a leader in its grounds of expertise.
  • Has the respect of its member organizations and others as well.
    • Develops partnerships and participates in other related networks.
    • Establishes communication, negotiation and concrete -but flexible- agreements with governmental institutions and external collaborators to create win-win situations.

Services

  • Presents concrete achievements.
  • Answers the real needs from the member organizations.
  • Conditions external help according to its internal process

Participation

  • Democratic and participative leader.
  • Vertical structure for participation that guarantees the flux of information, access to decision-making and the distribution of the benefits between the network and its members.
  • Its members have a high literacy level.

PROFILE OF A SUSTAINABLE NETWORK

A sustainable network is one that presents the features of success stated above plus the following:

Learning

  • Capacity to learn, integrate what has been learned and evolve and transform gradually.
  • Can identify and develop required skills to keep up with its own evolution

Coordination

  • Develops a circle of support between the member organizations.
  • Autonomy and operation flexibility
  • Achieves a culture of development, rather than a culture of dependency.
  • Manages external help according to its strategic plan.
  • Negotiates agreements with collaborators according to common interests.

    Resources

  • Economic sustainability comes from the member organizations and other processes controlled by the network.
  • Utilizes effective systems to control and channel resources. Mobilizes and integrates its resources effectively.
  • Channels resources to its member organizations.

Leadership

  • Counts with leadership that defines its indicators and steps to substitute its leaders.
  • "Call capacity" among its member organizations.
  • Defends the interests of the member organizations.
  • It is a leader in its field of expertise.
  • Inserts itself into political and economic power circles.

Planning

  • Designs programs to take advantage of niches identified in the surroundings.
  • Makes strategic planning.
  • Establishes short and long term goals.
  • Defines roles that integrate responsibilities and compromises, joint work and autonomy of the parties involved.

Participation

  • Participation is effective and promotes the network's legitimacy.
  • Has representativity and communication through transparent processes.

Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) » Top

What is WIDECAST?

The Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conserva-tion Network (WIDECAST) is an international scientific network founded in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) in 1981 to ensure the survival of six species of Caribbean sea turtle. The network is comprised of Country Coordinators in more than 40 Caribbean na-tions and territories. Each Coordinator works closely with a national coalition of govern-mental and non-governmental stakeholders, including scientists, natural resource mana-gers, conservationists, policy?makers, educa-tors and others. WIDECAST is based at the Nicholas School Marine Laboratory of Duke University in Beaufort, North Carolina.

Rationale

Sea turtles are severely reduced from his-torical levels. According to the World Conser-vation Union (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, persistent over-exploitation, especi-ally of adult females on nesting beaches, and the widespread collection of eggs are largely responsible for the "Endangered" status of three Caribbean species and the "Critically Endangered" status of three more.

In addition to a largely unmanaged and unmonitored harvest spanning centuries, sea turtles are accidentally captured in active or abandoned fishing gear, resulting in death to tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of turtles annually. Coral reef and seagrass degradation, oil spills, chemical waste, persistent plastic and other marine debris, high density coastal development, and an increase in ocean?based tourism have damaged or eliminated nesting beaches and feeding areas.

Reversing population decline is complicated. Threats to sea turtle populations can accumu-late over long periods of time, and can occur anywhere in the population's range. Sea tur-tles are highly migratory, so what appears as a decline in a local population may result from the activities of people hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Thus, while local conservation is crucial, cooperative action is also required at the regional level.

Facilitating Regional Action

WIDECAST is designed to address both national and regional conservation priorities - both for sea turtles and the habitats upon which they depend - and takes the lead in de-veloping standard guidelines and criteria for research, as well as related peer-training and outreach.

WIDECAST is a Partner Organization of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in the Caribbean Sea, a relationshipwhich ensures that local concerns and expert-ise are linked to international decision-making. UNEP's Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region (‘Cartagena Con-vention') and its Protocol concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW Proto-col) form an important framework for sea turtle management in the Caribbean Region. The SPAW Protocol calls upon nations to "protect, preserve and manage in a sustain-able way" threatened and endangered species, including sea turtles, along with coastal and marine habitats of "special value".

To assist countries in fulfilling the mandate of the SPAW Protocol, WIDECAST experts assist each country in the development of a national management plan and conservation strategy for endangered sea turtles. The re-sulting document - known as a Sea Turtle Recovery Action Plan (STRAP) - is tailored to local realities and presents recommendations for science-based sea turtle conservation.

Central America Sea Turtle Conservation Network » Top

This network was created in 1996 under the initiative and direction of several regional leaders, including as Colum Muccio, Randal Arauz, Anabella Barrios and Didiher Chacón. The first Regional Workshop took place in Puerto de San José, in Guatemale, and more than 50 people participated. By 2000, four Regional workshops had already taken place, in countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama and Belize, in which more than 300 people of the region have participated and received training.

OBJECTIVES

  • Strengthen all members of the network through:
    • Training
    • Materials and equipment
    • Update of printed information
  • Develop agreements and alliances to support the network and its work
  • Locate funding sources to support the activities carried out by the network and its members.
  • Develop the offer of expertise services of each region towards other locations.
  • Promote group decision-making and consensus.
  • Provide assessment to all the states in the region.
  • Work under the political framework of ALIDES.
  • Promote a normative based in well-sustained decisions, under the concept of “shared resource”.

STRATEGY

Strengthen the network at the same time as its member organizations without taking any territory from these, or overshadowing their individual work.

Increase the capacity of the member organizations in managing concepts and executing ideas.

PARTICIPATION

The participation of the different member organizations in the region has two functions:

  • Validate or enrich the quality of the decisions.
  • Establish good public relations.

COORDINATION

  • It represents homogeneous or communal interests among organizations and members
  • Integrates but does not subordinate the member organizations.
  • Supports and facilitates planning and strengthening processes at an institutional level (projects)
  • Supports and facilitates training processes for the member organizations.

ACHIEVEMENTS

  • National networks working in the 7 countries.
  • Coordinators and sub coordinators working.
  • Strategic planning elaborated.
  • Three workshops executed.
  • Various training processes developed.
  • Various donors providing financial support to the region.
  • Create network links with other similar entities (WIDECAST, Colombian network, etc.)
  • International presence.
  • Resolutions and regional positions (e.g. CITES)
  • Public denunciations executed.

PRODUCTS

  • Four executed workshops.
  • 200 people trained in the region.
  • Proceedings of the regional workshops published.
  • Educational and informative material published.
  • 21 coordinators in the XVII, XVIII and XIX International Symposiums.
  • Inter-American Convention with 72% of the countries in Central America.
  • Various laws and moratoria approved in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Costa Rica during the last 10 years.
  • Strategic planning for the region.
  • Illegal trade assessment for the region.

National Sea Turtle Conservation Network » Top

The National Sea Turtle Conservation Network is an alliance between organizations and individuals made to improve the conservation status of the sea turtles in Costa Rica.

They are members of the Sea Turtle Conservation Network of Central America.

Mission

Promote and support conservation and research of sea turtles in Costa Rica through collaboration and communication between NGO´s, governments, community associations, researchers and local communities that relate with the conservation of sea turtles.

Objectives

  • Create and maintain a link between the organizations that are part of the national network.
  • Promote public information and education.
  • Support training of organizations and people who work in the research and conservation of the sea turtles, or wish to initiate these activities.
  • Create a database for the sea turtle projects operating in the country.

Caribbean Leatherback Alliance (ABC) / ALIANZA PARA LAS BAULAS DEL CARIBE (ABC) » Top

The leatherback sea turtle was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act on June 2, 1970 (35 FR 8495). Internationally, it is considered .critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) while it is also included on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Information on the status and distribution of the leatherback sea turtle is critical to its conservation. Monitoring the various life stages of the turtles on nesting beaches is being conducted to evaluate current and past management practices, but most of the information available is collected mainly from the nesting beaches, where the animals are more available and easiest accessible.

Along Caribbean Central America, leatherback nesting occurs predominantly from March to mid-July although low level nesting has been observed as early as January and as late as August (Chacón, 1999). Studies of the rookery began in the 1950's with descriptions of nesting behaviour and biometric characteristics in Tortuguero area and slowly evolved; in 1990, regular surveys and tagging began on beaches from northern Costa Rica to northern Panama (Campbell et al., 1996; Chacón, 1999). In 2003, at least eleven projects monitoring leatherback nesting operated along the coast (Troeng et al, 2005).

In Tortuguero, Caribbean Conservation Corporation initiated track surveys in 1995. Since 1994, the Endangered Wildlife Trust has implemented daily nest counts from March to mid-July in the private Pacuare Nature Reserve. Since 1991, Asociación ANAI has conducted daily nest counts on Gandoca beach during the leatherback nesting season (Chacón 1999). Aerial surveys were conducted in a Cessna 185 flying at an altitude of 30-100 m at 185-225 km hr-1. All surveys were conducted in the morning (8:00 AM-10:35 AM) in a north to south direction beginning at the San Juan river. Annual leatherback nesting varied with 574-1,623 nests yr-1 deposited at Tortuguero, 490- 1,286 nests yr-1 at Pacuare and 405-1,135 nests yr-1 laid at Gandoca (Troeng et al, 2005). Illegal collection of leatherback nests in Costa Rica declined from 78 % in 1987 (Berry,1987) to 11.5 % on the relatively well protected index beaches in 2003.

The current level of illegal egg collection may exceed sustainable levels when coupled with impacts caused by fisheries. Although leatherback egg collection has been prohibited in Costa Rica since the 1960's, a law that established prison sentences for egg collection entered into force in 2002 (Legislative Assembly, 2002). It is clear that the new law has not been a deterrent as illegal egg collection increased in 2003. Increased enforcement on nesting beaches is urgently needed to reduce illegal egg collection.

The Caribbean Leatherback Alliance (ABC, for the initials in Spanish), is a partnership between projects and institutions that work for the protection, conservation and research of the Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) at the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. The main reason for this initiative is that nesting turtles alternate frequently between nesting areas of this coast during the same season. The partnership is the ideal mechanism to strengthen each one of the individual projects by joining efforts.

Because of the turtles.slow growth rates and subsequent delayed sexual maturity, all monitoring will need to be conducted over a long period of time to establish population trends. Also, tag observations show that individual leatherback turtles may change between beaches within and between nesting seasons.

This initiative was created two years ago (2003), as response to the need of various projects to know the origin of the tags that some female turtles carried, but where foreign to their project. This unrest allowed to find out that turtles were tagged in other places, and that the same females would visit different beaches on the coast throughout each nesting season. However, at the same time, such effort demonstrated that survival threats in each beach were distinct so were the resources and capabilities of each project to respond and mitigate such pressures.

Considering the common factor and driving force each one of the nesting turtles, this initiative focus in activities that will not only improve the conservation status of this species, but increase the positive impacts of the activities carried out by individual projects in at least seven beaches along the coast.

Some of the partners involved have been developing sea turtle directed conservation actions for decades, as the Caribbean Conservation Corporation (CCC) and Asociación ANAI, who possess wide experience and strong strategic links with Costa Rica government and international entities. This quality gives to the Alliance interest, experience and human resources.

On the other hand, the work in synchrony, using previously agreed methodologies, common materials and effort distribution from border to border makes the Costa Rica Caribbean Leatherback Alliance a unique project in its characteristics, where the range of action coverage and protection is, in no doubt, a strong point.

It has been previously demonstrated that the initiatives based in networks or alliances is one of the most productive and successful working mechanisms, as they increase the possibility of success, disperse the actions increasing the range of impact, improve cooperation and communication, allow the standardization of field protocols, the production of shared material, the training of field staff and the protection of a shared resource.

Goal:

Improve and strengthen the efforts for the conservation of Dermochelys coriacea in the Caribbean of Costa Rica, and nearby nesting areas.

Objectives:

  • Foment the establishment of an Alliance between projects that work for the protection of the Leatherback sea turtle in the Caribbean of Costa Rica and nearby areas of Panama.
  • Promote the standardization of research and conservation techniques achieving the unification of methods and efforts for the management of sea turtles throughout the Costa Rican Caribbean.
  • Foment educational processes coordinated in all of Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.
  • Establish standardized initiatives to support conservation actions executed by each group.
  • Improve participation and influence in national policy regarding the management, regulations and/or uses of sea turtles.
  • High percentage of the members of the community will actively participate in conservation of sea turtles.

RECATOMA » Top

La Red Centroamericana para la Conservación de Tortugas Marinas fué creada en 1996 por iniciativa y dirección de algunos líderes regionales, dentro de los cuales destacan Colum Muccio, Randall Arauz, Anabella Barrios y Didiher Chacón. El primer Taller Regional se llevó a cabo en Puerto de San José , Guatemala, y participaron más de 50 personas. Ya para el año 2000 se habían realizado cuatro Talleres Regionales en países como Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panamá y Belize, con una participación de más de 300 personas de la región.

Desde 1996 la Red Centroamericana para la Conservación de las Tortugas Marinas se ocupa de coordinar las acciones de las organizaciones afiliadas en el campo del estudio y protección de las tortugas marinas. Aunque, en sus inicios, la red estaba integrada por organizaciones del Área Centroamericana, en la actualidad forman parte de ella entidades de Ecuador y Colombia inclusive. Ello permite la implementación de iniciativas que intentan reflejar el hábitat de estos quelonios en su integridad.