Community-based conservation.
Not commercial tourism.

The project is located on Damas Island in Costa Rica and is run by a local family, Francisco and Sonia, who have lived on the island their entire lives. Their conservation journey started back in 2014 after helping with a turtle release, which inspired them to dedicate their land and lives to protecting sea turtles and preserving the island’s ecosystem.

Damas Island only has around 68 residents, so the experience feels very personal and connected to the local culture and environment rather than commercialized tourism.

The conservation impact is also really significant:

• Nearly 600 turtles visit the beach each year

• Around 38,000 eggs are protected annually

• Travelers actively assist with beach patrols, cleanups, nest monitoring, and conservation tasks

• The project also supports the local economy by creating opportunities for local guides and drivers while allowing the host family to stay fully dedicated to marine conservation

The experience strongly aligns with sustainability and marine conservation goals, especially protecting life below water and reducing marine pollution through hands-on environmental work and education.

Seasons

🐢 Peak nesting activity tends to be June–October

🐣 Hatchling season is most reliable August–January

🌴 Conservation work and patrols continue throughout the broader June–February turtle season

Wildlife is naturally unpredictable, so no specific sightings can ever be guaranteed, but the trip is built around participating in real conservation efforts and connecting travelers to the local ecosystem in a meaningful way.

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Why is human support necessary for sea turtle hatchlings? 

A big reason this conservation work is needed in this area is because sea turtles are incredibly vulnerable during nesting and hatching season. Even though these beaches are important nesting sites, the turtles face a lot of pressure from both human activity and environmental threats. Eggs can be poached or destroyed, hatchlings can become disoriented by artificial lights, and things like pollution, flooding, beach erosion, and disturbance from tourism can all lower survival rates.

The human intervention here is really focused on giving the turtles a better chance of survival. The patrols help protect nesting females and nests from disturbance, cleanups reduce dangerous debris and plastic on the beaches, and monitoring helps conservationists track population trends and identify threats over time. In some cases, nests may also need to be relocated if they’re at risk of flooding or erosion.

What makes the impact especially important is that sea turtles naturally have very low survival rates. Only a tiny percentage of hatchlings will survive into adulthood, so protecting even a portion of nests can have a meaningful effect on the population long term.

What makes this project stand out is that it’s community based rather than large scale commercial tourism. The conservation work directly supports both the turtles and the local community, creating more incentive to preserve the ecosystem and protect these nesting beaches for the future.