With the support of WWF’s Wildlife Adaptation Innovation Fund, the Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute (LAMAVE) partnered with Duli Beach Resort, a member of the El Nido Marine Turtle Conservation Network, to construct three climate-resilient hatcheries in three sea turtle nesting beaches in El Nido. Two of the three beaches were previously unmonitored and were chosen with consideration of where illegal egg poaching was still prominent. Constructed out of concrete by local crew and partially buried in the sand, these hatcheries were designed to protect nests from weather and climate-related threats and include weather stations and sensors to monitor the nests’ temperatures in real-time. The sensors were also used to compare temperatures across the hatcheries, including the shaded and unshaded sections of each hatchery.
Community members and citizen scientists were trained to conduct nightly patrols during the primary hatching seasons of November to February in an effort to involve local communities, raise awareness around sea turtle conservation, and, importantly, to ward off poachers. Patrols took place at night—the main nesting time for sea turtles in the area—and lasted over 90 days. Through resounding community interest and engagement, 18 additional nests were found and relocated to the hatcheries from beaches upwards of 3.7 miles away from the target beaches, bringing the total number of relocated nests to 190. This was more than double the amount from the previous year’s attempt, which relocated 86 nests to hatchery facilities, and was nearly triple the amount from the last five years. Additionally, patrollers collected valuable data, including measurements of the nesting mother and the exact location and time of nesting, which could be used to compare findings across sites and identify patterns and correlations. Each day, the involvement of the community grew—patrollers even convinced some poachers who they caught to donate the nests to the hatcheries through an incentive-based mechanism.