Underwater with a Hawksbill

Thanks to our friends at ICAPO, SeaTurtle.org, and Flora & Fauna International for sharing these videos with us.

Arribada, Aerial Footage

Great aerial footage of an arribada in Mexico.

International Coastal Cleanup with NICA

Paso Pacífico has been managing Nicaragua's participation in the Ocean Conservancy's annual International Coastal Cleanup for five years. This past weekend, Comunidad Connect, TESÓN, and Barrio Planta helped us round up hundreds of volunteers who picked up over 2000 pounds of trash along the beaches and waterways of several coastal communities. You can read more about it (in Spanish) at El Nuevo Diario. This coming weekend is part two of our International Coastal clean up, when we'll recruit more volunteers to pick up trash from other beaches.

Photo courtesy of NICA

For the third year in a row, we were also joined by NICA, who coordinated the cleanup on the beaches of the fishing village El Transito (pictured above), gathering 48 volunteers to work alongside 13 municipal employees who collected 4500 pounds of garbage and recyclables on Saturday.

NICA's mission is to empower Nicaragua through community development, helping the country become more self-sufficient and a greater participant in the global economy. They work on sustainability issues in rural communities and we look forward to future collaboration with them, especially after brainstorming with them at the Clinton Global Initiative this week.

Photo courtesy of Erin Orias

NICA's Individual Aid Program organizes a group of women to clean the coast three days a week for a few hours each day. After completing 78 hours of community work over a 13-week period, the women receive benefits of food and/or construction materials. Since the program was founded in 2006, El Transito Beach has been among Nicaragua's most pristine.

We are pleased to partner with NICA. When we asked how they felt about this weekend's event, they said this:

"The best part of the cleanup was that we sent the message to local people that when we join forces with other organizations and we work together, we can achieve our goal of a clean coast and show to our next generations that they can participate in this change."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

12 Miles of Paradise

Over at the WILDblog, Brad Nahill, recalls "Exploring Nicaragua's Paso del Istmo":

Brad Nahill spots a turtle
(photo by Sarah Rudeen)

We headed out by boat to explore the spectacular stretch of coast, possibly the most beautiful and dramatic of coastline that I’ve ever seen (and I live in Oregon). Crashing waves batter sloping flat rocks and white sand beaches hide behind rocky-forested outcrops. Moving north along the coast of the wildlife refuge, we stopped in front of La Flor beach, one of a handful of beaches in the world that host the arribada, a mass nesting event of olive ridley sea turtles. My years of experience being quiet around turtles on nesting beaches went right out the window as I let out a yell as a small head popped out of the water not far from our boat. The turtle heard me and dropped right back into the water, but there were plenty more bobbing around.

We were really happy to show Brad the beautiful region where we work, and are grateful for the support of his organization. SEEtheWild, which he co-founded, protects endangered wildlife through conservation travel.

Learning together

Last night we met a great group of Pepperdine students who are partnered with us for a joint financial management course provided by the Ventura County Community Foundation and Pepperdine University.

Our team includes Gemma and Reuben from southern California, and Lauren from Texas. All three are minoring in non-profit management and seem bright, well-informed, and eager to help us hone our fundraising strategies and financial planning procedures. We look forward to learning from them and working alongside them this semester.

We're grateful to Pepperdine, VCCF, and the Amgen and Weingart foundations for making this opportunity available to us.

Join us September 22nd & 29th