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Despite previous disagreements over turtle use issues at Ostional, government, the local community, scientists, and the universities joined together in RETOMALA XI between February 18 – 21, 2004. Almost 150 people from 21 countries met in the refuge; some of them to learn about use of sea turtles, others to know more about the history of Ostional first hand, others to have fun, and others looking for an “arribada”.

The first two days focussed on “Sustainable Use of Sea Turtles in Latin America” and on the third day there were two talks; one on the “Interamerican Convention of Sea Turtles”, and the second on “Solar Energy as an Alternative for the Kitchen of Rural Communities”. The latter was presented by a Costa Rican non-governmental organization, Sol de Vida.

The workshop started with 3 talks about topics that should be considered in any sustainable use of wildlife program: ecological aspects of sustainable use by Alberto Abreu, social aspects by Jack Frazier and Lisa Campbell, and the economic aspects by Sebastián Troëng and Gerardo Barrantes. The moderator of the workshop was Carlos Drews. After these presentations, there were four study cases: two programs on extractive use of sea turtles, and two non extractive use of sea turtles. The extractive examples were: Human consumption and domestic trade of olive ridley eggs in Ostional, by Gerardo Chávez, and Sustainable use of hawksbills in Cuba by Félix Moncada. The non-extractive examples were: Project TAMAR in Brazil by Gustave Lopez and the Ecotourism program of Tortuguero, Costa Rica, by Eduardo Chamorro.

Whether these individual programs were sustainable or not was beyond the scope of this workshop. The talks and the study cases were intended to give general guidelines to inspire and open the discussions. Following these presentations, each participant was asked to participate in one of three discussion groups. Each person freely chose a group: economics, ecology and social. The objective of these groups was to “brain storm” ideas, to group them in general concepts, and generate their indicators. They were digitized in a draft and will be available at the RETOMALA web page: <http://members.seaturtle.org/retomala/>. This draft was given no further analysis outside the meeting, and is not a citeable resource.

The workshop concluded with a general agreement that there is a close relationship between the ecological, economic and social viewpoints that must be considered in any sea turtle use program if it is to be sustainable. The topic is complex, needs more discussion, and requires urgent attention. The main achievement of the meeting was that RETOMALA fostered both individual and group reflection, and provided space to discuss and learn about the use of wildlife.

Acknowledgments: The meeting was possible thanks to many institutions and people. We thank the Ministry of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica, especially the Tempisque Conservation Area (ACT) the World Wildlife Foundation, the Association for the Development of Ostional (ADIO), United Nations Program for the Development (PNUD), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Marine Turtle Specialist Group of IUCN, and the Ford Motor Company. Many thanks to the Organising Committee: Carlos Mario Orrego (Costa Rica) <carlosmarioo@hotmail.com>; Claudia Ceballos (Colombia) <claudiaceballos@epm.net.co>; Laura Sarti (México) <lsarti@avantel.net>; Félix Moncada (Cuba) <fmoncada@cip.telemar.cu>; Rolando Castro (Costa Rica) <rcastro@cedarenal.org>