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Our community service project goals:
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Provide a meaningful project, one that is important to the local community and gives volunteers a real sense of satisfaction and contribution.
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Joint participation by local community and group volunteers to provide the opportunity for a cultural exchange.
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Provide an opportunity for volunteers to enhance their Spanish skills and for Costa Rican people to learn English.
Our service projects:
We organize and administer service projects in the local Guanacaste communities.
For all projects, volunteers interact with the Costa Rican people of Guanacaste, share ideas, learn about customs, and experience their genuinely friendly nature.
Some of the projects we have completed:
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Paint local elementary school together with kids from the school
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Plant trees and shrubs at elementary school
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English language instruction to local elementary school children
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Repair community center
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Repair and paint soccer field goal posts
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Purchase and paint garbage and recycle bins with environmental theme
 Special turtle service projects
We work closely with biologists from the
Parque Nacional Marino Las Baulas and The Leatherback Trust
participating in activities and projects that will preserve the Playa Grande area as an active nesting destination for the leatherback and other turtles.
Youth groups learn firsthand about the life and history of the leatherback and other turtles native to Costa Rica. Many of our groups watch the nesting process.
Some of our projects:
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Install majones on the beach to track nesting location of the leatherback turtle
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Patrol beaches at night with biologists and document nesting activities
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Rebuild turtle vivero where biologists place leatherback turtle eggs for protection until hatched.
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Rebuild beach observation tower
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Beach cleanup: keeping the Playa Grande beach free of refuse in order to assure the return of the leatherback to Playa Grande for nesting.
 Parque Nacional Marino Las Baulas
Las Baulas Marine National park is located in Guanacaste, in the Santa Cruz canton and it was created in 1991. The Wildlife refuge has an area of 500 hectares and the national park 112 hectares.
This park is highly important because it is the nesting site of the Leatherback Turtle. These turtles weigh up to 500 kilograms and they are over 2 meters long. The Nesting season goes from September to March. This species is in tremendous danger of extinction and needs protection this is why the Las Baulas Marine National Park was created.
In the area there is quite abundant flora, mangrove trees are greatly common and for instance monkeys and crocodiles can be observed in the park area. The park is the ideal place for hiking and after that sunbathing and relaxing at the lovely Playa Grande.
Surrounded by 445 hectares of mangrove forests and rugged coastlines, the Las Baulas National Marine Park has four beaches, Playa Grande, Playa Langosta, Playa Avellanas and Playa Carbón.
Besides being the nesting site of thousands of leatherback turtles, the Las Baulas Marine Park protects 174 species of birds and a number of animals living in the estuary. Home of the white ibis, heron cattle and the blue wing teal duck, also protects capuchin monkeys, raccoons, crocodiles, and gray squirrels.
Sea Turtle Restoration Project:
Sea turtles are ancient ocean dwellers that have lived on the Earth for 150 million years, since before the time of the dinosaurs. There are seven species of sea turtles: Green, Kemp's ridley, Olive ridley, Hawksbill, Leatherback, Flatback and Loggerhead.
Now, all seven species of sea turtles are either critically endangered or threatened. Astonishingly, the population of leatherbacks has declined by 95% over just the past 25 years.
Sea Turtle Restoration Project • PO Box 370 • Forest Knolls, CA 94933, USA
Phone: +1 415 663 8590 • Fax: +1 415 663 9534 •
Major threats to the survival of sea turtles are:
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Large-scale poaching of adult turtles and turtle eggs
Drowning in shrimp nets and by being dragged by longline hooks set by tuna and swordfish fishers
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Development and destruction of nesting beaches
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Pollution and plastic debris in the ocean
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Climate change causing rising sea levels that impact nesting beaches. Warming ocean temperatures are also likely to negatively impact the food resources for sea turtles and virtually all marine species.
Scientists predict that the giant Pacific leatherback sea turtle, which has survived unchanged for over 100 million years, could vanish in the next 5 to 30 years if current threats from wasteful industrial fishing are not curtailed.
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