When you look at a typical global map of nesting sites for any sea turtle species—such as the maps in previous SWOT Reports—what you see is a lot of dots. Before a dot can be plotted, researchers first toil long days and nights on the beach, recording nests or nesting females and then contribute their hard-won data to SWOT’s database.

Money alone does not make conservation happen, but it is a necessary ingredient, and acquiring it can be one of our greatest challenges as conservationists.

Advances in computing power, simulation modeling software, remotely sensed data for ocean currents, sea surface temperatures, and other conditions, and new data on sea turtle biology are giving rise to a new generation of problem-solving tools for sea turtle research and conservation.

Humans are social animals. Our attitudes and behaviors are guided by others in our societies through the competition of selfish interests, taboos, tacit rules, formal law, policing, and the degree to which we submit to governance. What follows is an examination of how these controls on human behavior can change through persuasive efforts.