In a huge triumph for the protection of the world’s most important nesting beaches and incredible surf zones, WILDCOAST announces the conservation of 9.3 miles of coastline in Oaxaca, .

Through WILDCOAST’s partnership with Mexico’s National Commission for Protected Areas (CONANP), the equivalency of the US National Park Service, more than nine miles of key nesting beach for Olive Ridley and Leatherback sea turtles are now protected on southern Mexico’s Oaxaca coastline. The long crescent beach of Morro Ayuta, between the cities of Huatulco and Salina Cruz, is key for the survival of these threatened and charismatic species. Surfers may know this area for its world class right point breaks that are featured in countless films and social media feeds every year. But many may not know how important it is for sea turtles.

Every year, nesting Olive Ridley females arrive on the region’s beaches to lay their eggs in a wildlife phenomenon found nowhere else on earth, called arribada. During the 2016-2017 arribada seasons, more than two million turtles nested on the beach at Morro Ayuta. “It is without question one of the most important coastlines in the world for sea turtles,” commented Serge Dedina, Executive Director at WILDCOAST. “These arribadas are the largest assemblages of Olive Ridleys in the world,” he continued.

Unfortunately, illegal poaching of meat and eggs, and even more so, the threat of unplanned development in their habitat, weigh heavy on most sea turtle species, including those that use the Oaxaca coast. The region’s surf spots are equally at risk of destruction from coastal development. In response to these threats, WILDCOAST and their partner CONANP, developed a mechanism to protect key shoreline, not just for sea turtles, but other wildlife and important ecosystem services, all along Mexico’s Pacific Coast..

In 2008, they developed a tool to set-aside the coastal federal zone, the first 60 feet of shoreline above the maximum high tide line, in key places along the Mexican Pacific coastline for conservation. By concessioning the federal zone for conservation, WILDCOAST and CONANP are preventing potentially destructive uses, like marinas, mega-hotels and , from obtaining concessions and destroying natural beaches, points, bays, wetlands, and mangroves.

The program has led to the protection of 1,137 miles of coastline in Mexico, including the beach of Morro Ayuta. “This is a tremendous conservation victory for the protection of sea turtles, coastal and marine ecosystems, and an amazing surf region,” said Zach Plopper, WILDCOAST’s Conservation Director. “This coastline is a special place,” he continued. “Not just for surfers but also for the rich array of wildlife including turtles that come here.”

WILDCOAST’s federal zone conservation tool has protected other coastal areas of Mexico, including southern Baja’s gray breeding lagoons, coral reef coastline in Cabo Pulmo and Huatulco, the vast mangrove forests of Bahia Magdalena and the Gulf of , and the Baja Peninsula’s remote wilderness coastlines. For more information visit www.wildcoast.org