Conservation - MEXICO Monthly Update for Conservation Programme

Mexico Tecoman turtle camp Monthly Update - January 2007

Our Conservation Project begins the New Year with many exciting challenges for our volunteers to face. With the arrival of the very rare Leather Back Turtles and new interesting programs that will expand our activities to a larger area, we can only expect more exciting times to come in the near future.

We are taking our conservation work one step ahead (literally), we're starting a Biodiversity Study of the Lagoon "El Chupadero" which is only a 10 minute walk from the Turtle Camp. Our conservation volunteers will conduct observation surveys in order to identify, classify and catalogue the local species.

Once all these species are catalogued, Projects Abroad will start an initiative to declare this lagoon a National protected area.

We will need to encourage relationships between our volunteers and the local community in order to expand the boundaries of the conservation project into more remote areas of the lagoon. Here we hope to find rare species, which are not in catalogues or bio diversity guides. The lagoon lies in a 40km2 area that we will be covering gradually everyday, our constant presence is necessary in order to have accurate data.

Among other things coming up, in February our volunteers will start helping in a new conservation initiative at a crocodile farm. Volunteers will be measuring newborn crocodiles, building nursing pools and monitoring the ones that already inhabit the lagoons.

In the uncertainty of a world that is constantly changing, we have been given the chance to make a difference. There is lots more to be done and there are a lot of obstacles in our way, but with the right determination, we can only expect that the actions we take will bring new and better things for 2007.