The Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) is committed to facilitating a regional capacity to ensure the recovery and sustainable management of depleted sea turtle populations. And so we ask ourselves: “What would a sustainably managed sea turtle population look like?” What would it look like to Government? To a fisher, a coastal community, a child? To a hotelier, a dive operator, a tourist? What would it “look like” to a reef, a seagrass bed, a sandy beach? Each of these entities, and many others, relies upon and/or benefits from the sea turtle population in measurable ways.
Borrowing the parlance of sustainable development, a sustainably managed sea turtle population might be defined as one that meets the needs – ecological, economic, socio-cultural, political, aesthetic, spiritual – of the present without compromising the ability of the population to fulfill these roles in the future. To this end, WIDECAST – a volunteer coalition of experts resident in more than 40 nations and territories – seeks to bring the best available science to legislation and policy; to education, training and outreach; to conservation and advocacy; and to in situ research and population monitoring.
Please join the conversation! If policies aimed at sustainability are our goal, what do such policies look like? What role can an individual (a community, a nation) play? This site is designed to empower you to make more informed choices, choices rooted in the belief that the decisions we make today will create the choices of tomorrow, just as the decisions of generations past have painted the landscape we see today. Explore, learn, act! Join us!