The Grupo Tortuguero has been a key participant in a number of festivals on the peninsula, including the Encuentro Ambiental de Pescadero and the Festival de la Caguama in Lopez Mateos. For information on upcoming festivals, or to invite the Grupo Tortuguero to participate in a future festival, contact Kama Dean at kama@propeninsula.org, or Jesús Lucero at chuy@grupotortuguero.org.

Click here for information about School Workshops and Youth Trainings.

Ongoing Events

Each summer, surfers and conservationists come together in celebration of ocean conservation and awareness at the annual Encuentro Ambiental de Pescadero (Pescadero Environmental Fair) and Annual Baja California Surf Championship in Pescadero, Baja California Sur. The event is put on by Pro Peninsula in partnership with the Grupo Ecológico y Tortuguero de Pescadero (GETUP) and is held at Playa Los Cerritos, just one hour north of Cabo San Lucas.

The spot draws surfers from La Paz, Los Cabos and the U.S., as well as other towns along the peninsula. Additionally, the pristine nature of the area, the amazing waves and the fact that the area is a key location for sea turtle nesting, makes this a hot spot for conservation. Most importantly, the event provides surfers, spectators and tourists a chance to interact with local Mexican environmental groups, including the Grupo Tortuguero, working hard to save Baja California’s precious coastline. Groups set up informational booths and offer spectators environmental demonstrations, sea turtle talks, children’s workshops, and more. 

To see pictures from the 2004 Pescadero Environmental Fair and Surf
Contest, click here.

If you are interested in participating in next year’s event, as a sponsor, volunteer or spectator, please contact Chris Pesenti at 619-574-6643 or chris@propeninsula.org.

III Sea Turtle Festival in San Carlos

Each year the School for Field Studies, along with other members of the Grupo Tortuguero, put on a sea turtle festival in San Carlos, BCS.  The festival is traditionally near the end of March, and hosts different environmentally themed booths with face painting, coloring and games; contests for the best drawings, stories and sand sculptures of sea turtles; dances by local school groups and the crowning of the Turtle Festival King and Queen.  In conjunction with the 2005 festival, a responsible fishing and sea turtle conservation workshop was held for fishermen from Bahia Magdalena.  Presenters from across Baja California, mainland Mexico, and the U.S., from universities, government and non-profit organizations came together to present on topics relating to sea turtle conservation and sustainable fishing practices. 

The highlight of the festival was a demonstration, put on by the Grupo Tortuguero and SFS, of the turtle monitoring done by the communities within the Grupo Tortuguero.  Participants watch as measurements were taken, turtles weighed, and other data was collected from the black turtles captured around San Carlos for the Grupo Tortuguero monitoring.  The festival came to an end with a community release of the turtles and their ceremonious return to the ocean.

The Sea Turtle and Water Quality Festival in San Carlos

The Sea Turtle and Water Quality Festival of 2006 took place on April 16th at the facilities known as the field school (Las Palapas). The festival was carried out with the support of Vigilantes de Bahía Magdalena (Magdalena Waterkeeper), with the participation of elementary school aged children from Puerto San Carlos and Puerto Magdalena. The festival included traditional mexican dances, and brought together different individuals and authorities from these communities to enjoy a variety of conservation and environmental awareness activities, and educational games.

This is the fourth successful annual festival that we've organized, and as always had the main goal of helping these communities to learn about protecting and preserving this wonderful species, as well as learning how to preserve and care for the bay in general, so that generations to come can continue to enjoy sea turtles and other marine species. We want to promote, create awareness and encourage a greater quality of life through sustainable development by educating communities, and encouraging them to engage in conservation.

We are also trying to encourage other communities, such as Puerto Adolfo López Mateos, Puerto Alcatraz, Santo Domingo, Puerto Cancún and Puerto Chale, to participate in the event, so that they can also be a part of protecting the Bay, and understanding the importance of protecting this endangered species.

During August 2005 proCAGUAMA made the 3rd Loggerhead Turtle Festival for the first time at the docks. Although this was the third year this festival took place, people from Lopez Mateos already compare it with the Whale Festival, a celebration with many years of tradition.

This year all the monitoring groups from Grupo Tortuguero came down from their communities, since the 4th Grupo Tortuguero Monitoring Meeting took place. This was a good opportunity to share the unique situation happening in Lopez Mateos, where loggerhead turtles come and stay for decades in order to feed with pelagic red crab and other organisms.

The artistic shows presented during the festival were of great acceptance. A Hawaiian dance group performed dances that remind us of the route loggerhead turtles follow when they pass through Hawaii while they are migrating from Japan to Baja California Sur.

The crowning ceremony of the loggerhead turtle festival queen Citlali Meza was an special act. She was scorted with fire torches from the docks to her throne by a group of young people from her community and two special characters: the loggerhead turtle and the black turtle, who was introduced to the public for the first time.

The Loggerhead Turtle Festival is an event that has an educational message for the community. It teaches new attitudes that help sea turtle conservation, as well as to live in a better community. Local people that participated in the festival have changed their attitudes regarding the sea turtles, which has set an example for other people in their community. If you will like to know more about our festival and the work proCAGUAMA does click here.

 

IV Loggerhead Turtle Festival of Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos

This was the fourth year that proCAGUAMA organized a festival with the purpose of informing and making people aware of the threats to which loggerhead turtle is exposed to. This event took place the 12th and 13th August 2006 in Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos.

Approximately 3,000 people, not only from López, but from different communities from Baja California Sur and from all around the world, attended this event. A visitors' committee integrated by researchers from Cuba, Costa Rica, Japan, Argentina, The United States, Spain and Mexico was here to celebrate the presence of the loggerhead turtle in the waters of Lopez Mateos and, most of all, to remind this community that the future of these animals is in their hands. Just as the turtles we protect, Grupo Tortuguero network and proCAGUAMA has an international outreach.

For electing a festival queen, the two candidates: Lyzbeydy Covarrubias y Cindy Johaly Silva, organized clean-up campaigns in their community to collect as much plastics as possible and in this way winning the election. Both candidates collected 1, 500 kg of plastics, which were merchandised by a recycling company. Cindy was elected as the festival queen, since she collected herself 1,202 kg of plastics.

For the IV Loggerhead Turtle Festival we had the honorable presence of Baja California Sur's Governor, Narciso Agundez Montaño. Besides taking an eco-tour for sighting loggerhead turtles, attending to an exposition in our Visitors Center and crowning Cindy, the Governor also reiterated his support to the commmunity of Lopez Mateos to help in the development of their ecotourism project for the sighting of sea turtles. This was the first time the governor visited Lopez Mateos. His enthusiasm for supporting and helping sea turtle conservation, as well as the planified development of this community, inspires us to continue working even harder.

During the festival we also had different artistic shows and the charismatic sea turtle costumes which always make kids and grownups dance and have fun. If you will like to know more about our festival and the work done by proCAGUAMA visit our website, just click here.