The Park was established by Presidential decree in 1990 and formalized in law in July, 1995. It is made up of three nesting beaches, Playa Grande which is 3.5 km long, Playa Langosta which is 1.3 km long, and Playa Ventanas which is 1.0 km long. It also protects two mangrove estuaries, Estero de Tamarindo, the largest mangrove estuary in Central America, and the smaller Estero de San Francisco, as well as the ocean out to 12 miles offshore.

Protection of turtles and their nests is the responsibility of National Park guards. Research and conservation efforts are spearheaded by Dr. Frank V. Paladino, Department of Biology, Indiana-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, IN 46805, and his colleagues through their EARTHWATCH Inc. project which runs from late September to March each year. Faculty, students, and volunteers conduct scientific investigations of the turtles and their eggs and help in local conservation efforts and protection. A museum at the main entrance of Playa Grande provides an excellent educational experience for anyone interested in learning about the turtles. An audio tour of the museum is available in several languages.

Conservation faces many challenges at Las Baulas ranging from overdevelopment, through excessive tourism activities, to the stealing of eggs. The National Park has been chronically understaffed so that the beaches are often left unprotected. Despite an active education campaign, local residents still steal (poach) eggs from the beach. Tourists travel to the beaches expecting to see leatherbacks and often crowd around a nesting turtle, despite cautions from their local tour guides. Development continues behind the beach and increasing lights from new houses and the village of Tamarindo disorient hatchlings and adults. Although Las Baulas is remote from even the major population centers of Costa Rica, it suffers from the same pressures as found on sea turtle beaches in Florida, Greece, and elsewhere around the world. EARTHWATCH teams, concerned local residents, guides, local business leaders, scientists continue to work to improve the protection provided by the Park.

The number of leatherbacks has been declining from the early 1980's when Peter Pritchard first "discovered" up to 200 leatherbacks a night nesting on Playa Grande to 1994-95 when 30 turtles a night was more typical and to 1996-97 when as few as 10 turtles a night nested there. This decline appears to be related to many years of almost total poaching of eggs, to development behind the beaches, and to the incidental capture of leatherbacks in pelagic fisheries. The presence of an El Niño year in the Pacific is correlated with very low numbers of nesting leatherbacks at Las Baulas. In 1993-94 there were only 202 leatherbacks on Playa Grande and in 1996-97 only 128. This natural cycle seems to accentuate the long term decline of turtles on these beaches.

Protection began at Las Baulas in 1988 when Maria Teresa Koberg, the turtle mother of Costa Rica, started to bring Boy Scouts, students, and friends to the beach to help stop poaching. She converted local poachers to protectors and guides, and campaigned vigorously to get the Park established by decree and then law. If the time to maturation for a leatherback is an average of 13-14 years as reported by Zug and Parham (Chelonian Conservation and Biology 2: 244-249) then we might expect to see numbers of leatherbacks increase dramatically in 2001. The real question is whether there are enough adult leatherbacks left to keep the population healthy until the hatchlings produced due to beach protection over the last 10 years can reach adulthood and rebuild the population.

For more information on the biology of leatherbacks at Las Baulas see the articles by Steyermark et al (Chelonian Conservation and Biology 2: 173-183), Chaves et al (Chelonian Conservation and Biology 2: 184-189), and Morreale, et al. (Nature 384: 319-320).

You can help the leatherbacks of Las Baulas by joining an EARTHWATCH expedition, and by contributing to the Leatherback Trust .