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Rescue Center for Endangered Marine Species (CREMA)

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The Rescue Center for Endangered Marine Species (CREMA) is a Costa Rican non-profit NGO founded in 2012. We are a marine conservation and research organization working to protect ocean resources and promote sustainable fisheries policies in Costa Rica and Central America.
Costa Rica has an image as a conservationist country. Indeed there are many positive laws and regulations on paper in Costa Rica.
However, marine conservation is very far behind land conservation here, and furthermore, many of the positive laws and regulations that do exist go unenforced.

As a result, we direct our efforts in the following categories:

  • Direct in the field conservation projects
  • Public awareness and education
  • International marine biodiversity conservation policy.

Specific activities

  • We have conducted a public campaign ”SHARKS ALIVE” against shark finning in Costa Rica including gathering 80,000 petitions urging the government to ban this practice.
  • We constantly gather and publish data on sharks and sea turtles including in satellite tagging studies as well as studies on capture of these species in the national longline and shrimp fishing fleets.
  • We maintain direct conservation projects to protect sea turtles and their nests on beaches on the Pacific coast (over 170,000 sea turtle hatchlings protected).
  • We conduct year round public awareness marine conservation campaigns as well as education programs in schools, high schools and universities.
  • We work directly with the Ministry of Environment and the Costa Rican Congress and regularly file lawsuits against government agencies such as the Fisheries Institute and Customs Department when policies promote unsustainable exploitation of marine resources.
  • Sustainable small-scale fishery development.

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