The Gandoca Project

Deep in the southeastern corner of Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast lies Gandoca. Shielded by the Jairo Mora Sandoval Gandoca-Manzanillo Mixed Wildlife Refuge, this raw, 20,000-acre eco-preserve stands as one of the planet’s final strongholds for pristine tropical rainforests, rare marine wetlands, and endangered wildlife. But, Gandoca is facing a critical crossroads, and its future relies entirely on global conservation support.

The Last Safe Haven for the World’s Largest Sea Turtle

Playa Gandoca is a majestic stretch of dark sand. Its deep, unobstructed ocean access makes it a globally vital nesting ground for the endangered leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea).

For more than 100 million years, leatherback sea turtles have crossed Earth's oceans, surviving the extinction of the dinosaurs and countless changes to our planet.

Playa Gandoca is one of the most important leatherback nesting beaches in the region. Over fifteen years of research, scientists documented 2,751 individual nesting females and 8,766 nests, demonstrating just how vital this beach is to the future of these incredible animals.

When a nesting beach is lost, it's not just a beach that's lost. It's a homecoming that has been taking place for millions of years.

• The Ancient Ritual: Every year from March to July, prehistoric giants weighing up to 1,500 pounds pull themselves from the surf to lay their eggs in the sand.

• A Sanctuary Under Threat: Beyond leatherbacks, this coastline serves as a critical nesting refuge for other endangered species: the endangered hawksbill, and green sea turtles. These beautiful animals face growing threats. Beach erosion, coastal disturbance, pollution, marine debris, artificial lights, and poaching all reduce the chances that mothers can successfully nest and that hatchlings will safely reach the sea.

• The Fragile Circle of Life: From the moment eggs are laid to the fragile scramble of hatchlings racing toward the ocean, these creatures face immediate threats from climate change, habitat erosion, and ocean debris.

The Stewards: A Legacy of Preservation

On the border of this refuge sits a pristine, 6-hectare coastal property. It is isolated and has been cared for by a local Costa Rican family for generations. Rather than selling their ancestral land to commercial developers who might clear-cut the forest and disrupt the nesting beaches, this family has chosen a path of radical conservation. While they personally try to protect the turtle nests from poachers, along with area volunteers, it is difficult to access and impossible to support alone.

Volunteers from local conservation efforts must hike in or monitor from boats offshore. The family is partnering with MedFund to dedicate a portion of their land adjacent to Playa Gandoca to permanent ecological and community restoration

The Crisis: Survival Rates

Unlike heavily commercialized tourist parks, Gandoca operates as a unique "mixed" refuge. Here, local families work hand-in-hand with conservationists to actively defend their backyard ecosystems.

• Despite its ecological importance, Gandoca faces a critical crossroads. In the 1980s, wildlife poaching, habitat erosion, and coastal disturbances left unprotected turtle eggs with a mere 5% chance of survival. Organizations patrolling parts of the wider reserve area with volunteers, had improved this overall statistic to 45% for natural nests and 57% for nests moved to beach hatcheries. 

• Unfortunately, over the last few years, there has been limited protection work by these organizations near our proposed project site, which sits on a 6 hectacre property in one of the only formally unprotected zones directly adjacent, but outside the Gandoca-Manzanillo reserve.
  
  The Gandoca Ecological Garden and Turtle Sanctuary will preserve this area and protect the turtles that nest on the beach who fall prey to poachers. The Gandoca Ecological Garden and Turtle Sanctuary was created to protect this extraordinary place—not only for the turtles, but for future generations of people who will learn from, restore, and steward this remarkable ecosystem.

The Gandoca Project is more than a sea turtle conservation effort. It is a partnership between a Costa Rican family who has cared for this land for generations and who will lead the new Fundación and Medicine Everyone Deserves, a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission for nearly a decade has been to improve health and well-being for all. Together, we're working toward a vision where conservation and community thrive side by side. The facility will include a reciprocal healing center to provide healing spaces for humans as well. A place where you can ground in nature. The funding gathered through the human healing efforts will go directly back into the improvement of our protection efforts, creating a reciprocity of healing between us humans and the natural world.