Abstract
Protected areas are considered essential elements for global biodiversity conservation. They may not necessarily result in an effective conservation of resources in developing countries due to lack of funding for management and enforcement. In addition, poor governance aligned with conflicts of economic interests related to their use can further threaten their integrity and persistence. In the Dominican Republic, the western beaches of the Jaragua National Park (JNP), a protected area which is also part of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, have been proposed for development using a mass-tourism model. One of the most charismatic species found in this area is the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). In the present study, we assess hatching success, and factors affecting it, to determine the reproductive value across the area for the leatherback turtle. The main factors found driving hatching success at the study beaches are beach sector, incubation duration, date of lay and clutch size. Our results show that clutches in La Cueva (located in the buffer zone of the park) and Bahía de las Águilas (located inside the limits of the park) have an unusually high hatching success (~75 %) for this species, highlighting the importance of increasing protection efforts at these sites. We strongly recommend including La Cueva inside the limits of the JNP.
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Acknowledgments
We are very grateful to fieldwork assistants, especially to the JNP rangers for their collective conservation effort and for assistance with data collection for this project. We extend our thanks to the Dominican and international students, volunteers and local villagers who helped in different tasks of the project. The present study is included as part of a conservation project funded by: the Spanish International Cooperation Agency (AECI, projects: A/2991/05 and A/5641/06), the Spanish Ministry of Education and Sciences (CGL2006-02936-BOS), the General Foundation of the University of Valencia, and the European Union (Marie Curie grants, FP6 & 7). We specially thank the support of the Dominican NGO Grupo Jaragua and of The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The project counted on the support of the Dominican Environmental authorities (office of Protected Areas and Biodiversity of the Environmental Ministry). J. Tomás and J. A. Raga are supported by project Prometeo/2011/40 of Conselleria de Educacio (Generalitat Valenciana) and project CGL2011-30413 of the Spanish Ministry of Sciences and Innovation.
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Communicated by Margaret Miller.
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Revuelta, O., León, Y.M., Balbuena, J.A. et al. The value of endangered species in protected areas at risk: the case of the leatherback turtle in the Dominican Republic. Biodivers Conserv 23, 1529–1539 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-014-0682-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-014-0682-x