Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic – A landmark collaborative conservation effort between Aeropuertos Dominicanos Siglo XXI (Aerodom), the country’s leading airport management operator, and Grupo Piñero’s Bahia Principe Ecological Foundation (Eco-Bahía) has been formally extended for an additional five years, running through 2030, to protect vulnerable leatherback turtles and other at-risk sea turtle species that nest along the Dominican Republic’s ecologically sensitive northeastern coastline.
The expanded program’s protected coverage spans critical nesting habitats across multiple high-priority sites: the beaches of Nagua, La Majagua in the Sánchez municipality, Cosón in Las Terrenas, and extensive coastal zones surrounding Samaná’s El Catey International Airport. Beyond direct nest safeguarding operations, the two entities will roll out targeted environmental education campaigns tailored for local K-12 schools and coastal residential communities to build long-term public buy-in for marine conservation.
Under the terms of the renewed agreement, Aerodom will dedicate a permanent public exhibition space at President Juan Bosch International Airport, featuring a custom sculptural installation and interactive informational displays that educate hundreds of thousands of annual travelers about the sea turtle conservation program’s mission and milestones. The airport campus will also house a dedicated administrative office for the on-the-ground field conservation team, complementing a purpose-built nest protection enclosure already operational in the Los Yayales coastal zone.
The leatherback turtle, recognized as the world’s largest living sea turtle species, faces cascading existential threats across its global range, including widespread nest poaching, plastic and chemical marine pollution, and rapid coastal development that erodes critical nesting habitats. Data from the program’s recent implementation phases highlights dramatic, measurable progress in reversing decades of population decline. In 2025, expanded daily coastal patrols extended the total length of monitored, protected shoreline from 15 kilometers to 32 kilometers, driving a steep drop in nest poaching rates from 95% recorded in 2024 down to just 29.6% by the end of the year. Over the 2025 nesting cycle, conservation teams successfully secured 19 full nests, recovered 1,535 viable eggs, and released 461 healthy juvenile hatchlings into adjacent marine waters.
Results for the 2026 nesting season marked even more remarkable improvements: teams protected 26 verified sea turtle nests, pushed poaching rates down to an all-time program low of 7.7%, and oversaw the successful ocean release of 843 hatchlings. The extended 2020-2030 partnership will continue to expand these core operations, alongside structured educational outreach, community-led conservation skills training, and public celebratory hatchling release events that invite local residents and tourists to participate directly in biodiversity protection efforts. In 2025 alone, 180 students across five regional primary and secondary schools took part in the program’s hands-on environmental learning modules, while 50 local coastal residents completed specialized certification training in sustainable sea turtle stewardship practices.
Lead representatives from both Aerodom and Eco-Bahía emphasized that the extended initiative aligns with national biodiversity protection mandates, while also supporting the Dominican Republic’s fast-growing sustainable tourism sector and preserving the irreplaceable natural heritage of the Samaná peninsula and the wider northeastern coastal region for future generations.
Aerodom and Eco-Bahía extend sea turtle conservation partnership through 2030
