Violence plagues Costa Rican conservationists
Violence plagues Costa Rican conservationists
Poachers are becoming increasingly hostile towards ecologists in the central American nation.
Lindsay Fendt Last updated: 12 Apr 2014 08:04
Limon, Costa Rica - The police are late. Dressed all in black and balancing a baby howler monkey on her hip, a frustrated Marielos Morice checks the time on her mobile phone for the third time in five minutes. It's just past 8:30pm, and the police should be here to pick her up for a joint beach patrol.
Located on Costa Rica's Atlantic shoreline, Moin Beach is known as a hotbed of criminal activity. But for Morice, a co-owner of a nearby wildlife refuge, it is also the most important leatherback sea turtle nesting ground on the Caribbean coast. While police patrol for drug runners, Morice will seek out nesting turtles, gather their eggs and rebury them to protect them from poachers.
Morice only let herself half-hope that the police would agree to come. Maybe their compliance would show that Jairo Mora's murder last year had actually changed something.
Mora's murder
Mora, a 26-year-old sea turtle monitor, had been Moin Beach's most dedicated conservationist, but his commitment to saving as many eggs as possible didn't sit well with poachers. He started receiving death threats, then, in May, police found Mora's naked and tortured body face down in the sand. The eight suspects arrested in the case belonged to a well-known band of poachers.
More:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/04/violence-plagues-costa-rican-conservationists-poach-201447133025902449.html