Most of Florida’s sandy beaches and near shore environments provide critical habitat for sea turtles. Unfortunately, rapid coastal development, combined with a lack of awareness about the fragile nature of nesting sites and sea turtles, threaten the future of Florida’s marine turtles. As the number of residents and visitors continues to grow, it is imperative that coastal communities are instilled with a strong sense of stewardship over these priceless creatures and their habitat.
The Neighbors Ensuring Sea Turtle Survival (NESTS) program promotes the protection of sea turtles and their nesting beaches by teaching and encouraging community stewardship; NESTS encourages coastal residents to engage in simple activities that benefit nesting sea turtles, the nests themselves, and hatchlings.
Neighbors Ensuring Sea Turtle Survival (NESTS) empowers local citizens to become directly involved in the stewardship of the beach and dune ecosystem and the wildlife that depends upon a healthy coastal environment. Stewardship is fostered through teaching coastal residents about the importance of protecting the coastal environment and encouraging the completion of simple activities that reduce negative impacts to sea turtle nesting beaches and other coastal habitats. The program promotes increased stewardship on the part of individuals and families living on or near coastal communities. When they sign up to join the program, participants are given a list of actions—such as turning off lights at night or driving a different street route. Each action is correlated to a certification level—staring with the simplest steps to more challenging ones, which in turn lead to a higher level of certification. As residents move up the certification chain, they are rewarded with distinguishing identifiers (a lawn flag for example) and the comfort of knowing that more sea turtles will live thanks to their efforts. Many of the certification awards, the lawn flag included, have a dual benefit to NESTS by not only awarding our volunteers but also creating community awareness and “social diffusion” of participation; making more neighbors want to join as well.
Thank you to the Sea Turtle License Plate Grant for partially funding the NESTS Program!
