Linking People and Sea Turtles Around the Globe
In 1989, Roz Rapozo and Laura Sasaki traveled from Hawaii to Costa Rica for an adventure. And they got one! They happened across Playa Grande beach, and learned from locals about the giant leatherback turtles that nested there, and how the beach was being threatened by development. Upon returning to Hawaii, they decided to take action, and, with zero experience in conservation, non-profits, and film-making, formed The Honu Project, with an initial mission to make a documentary about the plight of leatherbacks in Costa Rica.
Over the next decade, The Honu Project produced three video documentaries that carried the story of sea turtles to audiences around the world. For All Time helped convince the Costa Rican government to establish a national park for leatherback turtles at Playa Grande. Fall of the Ancients shed light on the mysterious disease devastating Hawaii's green sea turtles. And Red Turtle Rising, winner of the Hawaii Film and Video Maker award at the 1999 Hawaii International Film Festival, turned a camera on the determined volunteers who show up season after season to protect nesting turtles on a remote Big Island beach.
In 2003, the Honu Project took a new name, the World Turtle Trust, who's mission was to act as a funding link between donors and small sea turtle conservation efforts around the world. Today the World Turtle Trust supports just two programs close to its heart: the Kamehame Beach Hawksbill Monitoring Program on the Big Island of Hawaii, which safeguards one of the few remaining nesting sites for critically endangered hawksbill turtles, and the Costa Rica Leatherback Project, which tracks and protects the ancient leatherbacks that return each year to the beaches of Costa Rica.
