Ricardo's Story In His Own Words
Hello my name is Ricardo, owner of the Life for Life Sea Turtle project in Punta Rio Claro de Drake. I came to this place 44 years ago to surf with a friend in a time when there was absolutely nothing but nature and a few farmers. A job to take care of a farm called Marenco later became a Biological Station where I learned with some biologists to be a naturalist ... 20 years ago I felt motivated by the conservation of sea turtles since I found an exaggerated depredation towards this species from part of the neighbors in the area realizing that they sold the eggs to bars for money for the idea of humans that they are an aphrodisiac. From there I began to study how to rescue this species that is in danger of extinction.
At the same time to be able to solve the expenses of this project we started to develop natural crafts... and now Tours in the waterfalls of Rio Claro. These tours both bring people into remembering the purity of life and supporting the sea turtle conservation project. It is totally ecological that can be done in canoe or kayak and perform various activities such as jumping, climbing, swimming, floating, caves, natural spa, natural clay mask and many other things.
Over the years we wanted to undertake a more professional project for the amount of eggs we managed to rescue, at the moment we have 3 species Lora, Verde and Carey .. For which we make a great human effort to get up at 2:00 a.m. from now on to go and rescue them before people steal them.
We search for and care for them under a professional and sterilized management ... we have an amount of 10,000,000 turtles released in 20 years, which impelled us and motivated us more and more to go ahead ... for the moment we rent a property to recruit volunteers because we need a lot of help to move forward with this project .. The project is not a foundation since we do not have financial help from any institution, we finance everything with our work and with donations that the people who visit us make to us from their heart. We are a Costa Rican family group with passion for this species that is in danger of extinction in the Corcovado National Park.
We want to expand the project with a new motivation that would be to repopulate the coral banks of Playa San Josecito that are dying rapidly as tourism boats in the area grows.
The project can grow thanks to the help you can give us, we need hands and hearts, as well as donations of all kinds, willing to collaborate with this beautiful cause.
The purpose of this project is to incorporate the community and school children to be participants in this project as an environmental education. It is important children are conscientious of conservation and respecting nature, recycling and picking up garbage.