What We Do

Sea Turtle Projects (CREMA)

Volunteers will have the opportunity to learn about the importance and threats that sea turtle populations are facing currently. They will have a hands-on experience working alongside a research team in the sea turtle conservation programs in San Miguel and Costa de Oro beaches. They will participate in night patrols, relocating sea turtle nests,  protecting hatcheries, doing maintenance to hatcheries, and releasing hatchlings.

** Sea turtle season starts June and ends mid-December. Volunteers can also collaborate in other programs throughout the turtle season and/or throughout the year.

Reforestation Hogar Tierra

This program, also called “Porque la Naturaleza no tiene fronteras” (Nature doesn’t have borders) was created in 2018 due to the hard work combined with CREMA, Turtle Trax, UESPRA and several educational/environmental organizations. Hogar Tierra and its reforestation program is an important awareness tool on the importance of ecosystems, medicinal, cultural and current threats of native arboreal species.

Volunteers, organizations, and community members have helped in maintaining our seedbed,  nursery garden,  and several trees already planted in different localities. These places and structures are now educational space, with over five thousand planted trees (March 2020) in the surrounding areas.

Awareness about the solid waste management

A large diversity of projects has been created to raise awareness about solid waste management and its impact at a Socio-Environmental level.

Our research teams and volunteers have collaborated with beach clean-ups, garbage categorization, and have learned about plastic pollution in our region and worldwide.

We are part of a bigger project in the region, a pioneering effort among several communities in the Southern Nicoya Peninsula. We are working towards reducing single-use plastics, recycling and re-using plastics, glass, and cans.

Environmental education and awareness

Turtle Trax believes that environmental education and awareness from an early age is extremely important in order to promote such topics to continue in the future. From its start, Turtle Trax research team and volunteers have participated in non-formal educational projects in several neighboring schools, thanks to the prior orientation with their social actors.

Since 2019, Turtle Trax and Hogar Tierra have worked together focusing in Javilla’s School (from collaborating with infrastructure maintenance to environmental education classes, among other activities). We gave an opportunity to the students from this school to explore their artistic abilities and learn to understand the importance of the natural resources surrounding them.

With this premise, we have been working on creating a space to share with all children from these communities on a weekly basis (Movie discussions, crafting with recyclable materials, and more).

Our project sites

Our projects, located in beautiful beaches from the Southern Nicoya Peninsula, are filled with great biological diversity, and they are less crowded than other places in the country. Access to these places is extremely rustic and difficult. We are currently located in the Nicoya Peninsula, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. This peninsula is characterized by its area (being the biggest peninsula in the country), bathed by the Pacific Ocean with a large number of species (flora and fauna)  and ecosystems (beaches, tropical forests, rivers, estuaries, etc). This is one of the most important regions for agriculture in the country, and it is one of the most touristic destinations. It is also popular for being one of the five “Blue Zones” in the world, that is, a geographical area with populations with high longevity (over ninety years old), this is believed to occur due to a healthy food tradition, good physical and mental health,  among others.

Our projects are located in the southern Nicoya Peninsula, where we can find beautiful beaches with great biological diversity, but less crowded due to tourists because its access is extremely rustic and difficult. We are currently working on four nesting beaches: Costa de Oro, San Miguel, Bejuco, and Corozalito. Our work is possible thanks to the help and collaboration of the people from these communities. Our volunteers normally stay mainly in Costa de Oro and San Miguel, however, during their stay, they will be able to visit and participate in the projects in the other neighboring communities according to the needs and development of the other projects.