Sea Turtle Festival

Since 2003, Proyecto Caguama has organized an annual festival in Puerto López Mateos: the Annual Sea Turtle Festival to celebrate the loggerhead turtle as a natural treasure akin to the grey whale. The festival has grown steadily over the past four years. The 2006 Festival was inaugurated by Narciso Agundez Montaño, Governor of Baja Claifornia Sur and attended by thousands of people from throughout the state and beyond. Therefore, between artistic shows, mechanical rides, delicious Mexican food and lots of fun, thousands of people from all over Baja California Sur and share in proCaguama’s conservation message.
Furthermore, a Sea Turtle Festival Queen is selected annually in a very particular way. For being the Sea Turtle Queen you don’t need to be pretty, you need to be interested in and engaged with loggerhead conservation. The candidates carry out a clean-up campaign in their community every year. The candidate to become queen is the one collecting the higher amount of garbage.
During the Sea Turtle Queen campaign of 2006, the candidates got together with their supporters to collect all the plastics in the beaches and streets of López Mateos. At the end of this contest 1.5 tons of plastics were collected and recycled. Cindy Johaly Silva was crowned by Baja California Sur governor, Narciso Agundez, after collecting over 1000kg of these plastics.
Through the Sea Turtle Festival we hope to make fishermen and the inhabitants of the coastal communities of Baja California Sur aware of that the fate of the North Pacific loggerhead turtles is in their hands; in the same note we expect to continue inspiring them to protect their natural resources.