2022 SEE Turtles Annual Report

President’s Letter

A few months into the pandemic in 2020, the situation for sea turtles and the sea turtle community was looking dire. In places that usually have intense tourism like Florida, there was a respite from boat traffic and sunbathers. But in many places around the world, sea turtle conservation work came to a halt and beaches were left unprotected due to lockdown orders, lack of funding, and fear of the virus. SEE Turtles was hard hit by the pandemic as we canceled all of our tours and donations declined. But we kept on swimming, and with the help of some generous donors along with government support, we were able to survive the year.

The good news is that in 2022, not only did we recover to our pre-pandemic success, but far surpassed it, exceeding our wildest expectations. We had our best year by far for our Billion Baby Turtles program with the help of some big sponsors, saving millions hatchlings through our network of partners around the world. Our Too Rare To Wear program launched a groundbreaking new app that identifies tortoiseshell products with just a photo, which resulted in our first coverage in National Geographic. With tourism returning, we launched successful new trips to the Galapagos, Panama, Costa Rica, and Oaxaca, Mexico, extending our impact to new locations.

We also grew our Sea Turtles & Plastic program that we launched in 2021, helping to remove hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic waste from 10 sea turtle hotspots. Our Sea Turtle Inclusivity Fund helped several worthy community leaders as well. Finally, our annual Sea Turtle Week Celebration had another great year, reaching millions and bringing our total partners to more than 170 organizations around the world.

This unprecedented success was due to the incredible support of individuals, business sponsors, students, travelers, and others. We want to especially highlight our two individual donors who made our Sea Turtle Week and Giving Tuesday matching campaigns so successful. We received tremendous support from the cryptocurrency community in 2022 as well, making it the fastest growing source of funds in our organization’s history. As we head into 2023, we’ll be working hard to continue that momentum.

We want to extend our thanks to our generous supporters who helped make this success possible!

Brad Nahill, President, SEE Turtles