Episode 1 : Playa Chiriqui, Panama

Our international team travels to Panama, to one of the most remote beaches on earth. There they join a select few people who, in their daily work, come face to face with the severely endangered leatherback turtle in the wild. For the first time ever in this location, a state of the art satellite transmitter will be fitted to a turtle. There's a lot of work to do and not enough people to do it - the local conservation workers desperately need help. With never before granted access to the critically important turtle-nesting beach, our team has only four days to make a difference. But to succeed, they need to put themselves through a punishing test of endurance. To track and find turtles, they'll have to stay awake day and night, in high humidity and sweltering heat, living in the most basic conditions. None of them know if they can go the distance. But there's one thing they do know - they're a long way from home.

Chiriqui Beach fast facts

• Main threat to marine turtles: being unintentionally caught in fishing hooks and nets
• How many are caught this way each year: 200,000 Loggerhead and 50,000 Leatherback turtles are caught annually by commercial long line fisheries
• How Many Leatherbacks are there: around 34,000 nesting females
• How important is Chiriqui Beach: It’s the most important nesting site for leatherbacks in the Western Caribbean with over 4000 nests laid every year.
  
  

Carlos Drews - WWF Marine Turtle Coordinator for Latin America & the Caribbean

		Carlos studied biology with an emphasis on animal behaviour, eventually finding his way to WWF in Central America, where he now focuses on marine turtle conservation. It’s not a small job! Carlos ensures that all WWF marine turtle conservation efforts in Latin America follow and add on to a regional strategy so that the collective efforts can achieve more than the sum of individual activities.  The job includes strategic planning, international policy work, launching new projects, fund-raising, photographing and filming turtles and giving speeches and presentations to selected audiences and students.
Carlos enjoys the diversity of intellectual and physical tasks his job throws at him and finds the biggest challenge that of securing enough funding to put into place ambitious, big picture conservation plans that will make a substantial difference to marine turtles in Latin America and the Caribbean. He has fond memories of filming Planet Action even if he was a little nervous to begin with! He says unveiling the week’s mission to the team, at the very beginning of the episode, was demanding as English isn’t his mother-tongue and he didn’t want to mess it up in a foreign language! He didn’t, and says the most rewarding moment was the genuinely surprised and delighted faces of the team when they learned about the significance of the beach and the tasks that awaited them.

Sebastian Troeng - Scientific Director, Caribbean Conservation Corporation (conservation partner with WWF at Playa Chiriqui)

Sebastian, a native of Sweden, first did a BSc in Biology, then an MSc in Marine Environmental Protection, and finally a PhD in Animal Ecology! Sebastian undertakes research to learn more about the amazing biology of sea turtles. As well, he co-ordinates conservation programs that aim to increase sea turtle nesting populations, mainly on remote beaches in Costa Rica and Panama. Sebastian particularly likes working on something he feels so strongly about but finds some aspects to his work challenging. One of those challenges is to find common ground amongst all the parties (like government officials and local communities) who have an interest in sea turtles and conservation efforts. Sebastian hopes that through the work of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation sea turtle populations will begin to recover so that people can continue to admire and enjoy these beautiful animals. Sebastian’s foremost memory of the Planet Action shoot was the enthusiasm of the team when they saw their first leatherback turtle on the beach! He says that although many of them were exhausted after walking for so long on the beach in the dark, they were all so impressed and thrilled with the encounter that they forgot about being tired.

Project update

Carlos, Sebastian and the local team made up of Cristina and the community turtle monitors continue their important work monitoring and trying to protect leatherback turtles.

Sadly, the last transmission from our turtle Cristina (named after the fantastic project manager at Playa Chiriqui!) was one month after WWF and the Planet Action team deployed the transmitter. On July 19th 2005 a signal was sent when Cristina reached the southern coast of the Dominican Republic. While the most likely explanation is a technical failure, it could also be that Cristina died after being caught in a fishing net. Idun, the second turtle after Cristina to be fitted with a satellite transmitter, has spent several months feeding on jellyfish in the cold waters just south of Nova Scotia, and in recent weeks has started heading towards the central Atlantic Ocean.

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