Executive Director
Latin American Sea Turtles (LAST)
Apdo. 496-1100, Tibás
Costa Rica
Tel/Fax: (506) 2 236-0947
Cell: (506) 8 838-9480
dchacon@widecast.org
Bräutigam, A. and K. L. Eckert. 2006. Turning the Tide: Exploitation, Trade and Management of Marine Turtles in the Lesser Antilles, Central America, Colombia and Venezuela. TRAFFIC International, Cambridge, UK.
1. Wildlife Law N° 7317.
2. Law for Sea Turtle Protection N° 8325.
3. Nacional Parks Law N° 6084.
4. Environment Law N° 7554.
5. Biodiversity Law N° 7788.
6. Fishing and Aquaculture Law N° 8436.
7. Interamerican Sea Turtle Protection & Conservation Convention Law N° 7906
8. CITES Law N° 5605.
There is a long history and substantial body of legislation governing the exploitation and conservation of marine turtles in Costa Rica and, it would seem, a similarly sizeable body of analyses of that legislative history. This culminated, in 2002, with the passage by the national legislative assembly of a specific marine turtle law, Decreto Nº 8325 Ley de Protección, Conservación y Recuperación de las Poblaciones de Tortugas Marinas (Law for the Protection, Conservation and Recovery of Marine Turtle Populations), which was gazetted on 28 November 2002. In addition to providing the basis for the adoption of the necessary measures to guarantee the country’s international commitments, most recently with respect to IAC, the law reiterates the obligation for national and foreign shrimp trawls operating within the territorial seas (12-mile limit) or Exclusive Economic Zone (200-mile limit) to deploy turtle excluder devices (TEDs). In addition, it requires that any project that promotes tourism activities in relation to nesting turtles must be authorized by the Ministerio del Ambiente y Energía (MINAE – the Ministry for the Environment and Energy) on the basis of technical criteria that ensure that the activities do not compromise marine turtle protection. Finally, the law incorporates articles setting forth the penalties for those who kill, hunt, capture, transport or trade in marine turtles as a prison term of one to three years, and for commercial possession and trade in marine turtle products or “sub-products” as a prison term of three to 24 months, in both instances with forfeiture of all equipment used in committing the infraction. The law nevertheless provides for a specific exemption to this prohibition for collection and marketing of eggs of Olive Ridleys in the Ostional National Wildlife Refuge on the Pacific coast, as regulated by MINAE.
Chacón, D., Eckert, K., (2007). Leatherback Sea Turtle Nesting at Gandoca Beach in Caribbean Costa Rica: Management Recommendations from Fifteen Years of Conservation, Chelonian Conservation and Biology, 2007, 6(1): 101–110
de Haro, A. and S. Troeng. 2006. Report on the 2005 Leatherback Program at Tortuguero, Costa Rica. Caribbean Conservation Corporation.
Reports for Gandoca, Cahuita and Playa Negra can be found at the ANAI website.
Troëng, S., D. Chacón and B. Dick. 2004. Possible decline in leatherback turtle Dermochelys coriacea nesting along the coast of Caribbean Central America. Oryx 38(4):395-403.
Troëng, S. and E. Rankin. Long-term conservation efforts contribute to positive green turtle Chelonia mydas nesting trend at Tortuguero, Costa Rica. Biological Conservation 121(2005): 111–116.
Troëng et al. (2005). Migration of hawksbill turtles Eretmochelys imbricata from Tortuguero, Costa Rica. Ecography 28: 394/402, 2005
Troëng, S., and Chaloupka, M., (2007). Variation in adult annual survival probability and remigration intervals of sea turtles, Mar Biol (2007) 151:1721–1730.
Troëng et al., (2005). Migration of green turtles Chelonia mydas from Tortuguero, Marine Biology (2005)