2023 SEE Turtles Annual Report
President’s Letter
In our 15th year, our team at SEE Turtles is thrilled to be able to help our network of partners protect more turtle hatchlings, clean up more nesting beaches, and support more coastal communities around the world than ever before. When we launched the Billion Baby Turtles program in 2013, it took us four years to reach the first million saved. We would joke that we only had 999 million more to go, but now in its 10th year, this program is saving more than 4 million hatchlings per year and growing. We blew past the 10 million mark this year, ending the year with a total of an estimated 13 million saved. These hatchlings were saved by our network of partner organizations working on more than 50 nesting beaches worldwide.
Our Sea Turtles & Plastic program also had a great year helping coastal communities clean up plastic pollution from turtle habitats in more than a dozen countries. Through our local partner network, our total collected was more than 230,000 lbs with more than 26,000 lbs recycled. We also supported 9 community projects that are building local infrastructure to recycle the plastic waste collected from beaches and communities in ways that support conservation and coastal residents. 2023 was also a banner year for Sea Turtle Week. We launched a slew of new initiatives including three contests, a YouTube video series, new resources for students, andmuch more. We reached more than 8 million people, hosted an global beach cleanup event in partnership with Oceanic Society, and brought on dozens of new partners around the world. We also launched a new program called The Hatchery to help new initiatives and organizations learn important skills to grow their impact, including trainings on fundraising, marketing, and more.
We deeply appreciate you joining this journey to help protect sea turtles and coastal communities worldwide. Your support makes progress like this possible.
Brad Nahill, President, SEE Turtles