Even if you haven't yet been there, you've probably
read our many articles and reader reports about
Costa Rica's Cocos Island, the island of the sharks, and
the wonderful diving to be had farther south in the
Galapagos. The United Nations has declared these two
diverse biological hotspots as World Heritage Sites.
While that provides them a degree of protection, the 400-
mile underwater superhighway between the two areas,
equivalent to the distance between Los Angeles and San
Francisco, remains unprotected, forcing migrating shark
species to run the gauntlet of long-line hooks that lay in
wait for them.
Todd Steiner, founder and executive director of the
Turtle Island Restoration Network, has proposed a novel
solution: the Cocos-Galapagos Swimway. "It will be the
first protected corridor for turtles and sharks connecting
the national parks of two sovereign nations," he wrote
us. "This swimway falls within the overlapping regions
of Costa Rica and Ecuador's exclusive economic zones,
allowing a giant swath of critical habitat to be protected by a single bilateral agreement. It will be the world's first
marine protected area that links the economic well-being
of two nations, and the first 95,000-square-mile safety
zone for migrating species."
Steiner's organization is working with partners and
governments in Costa Rica and Ecuador to start creating
the political will. He's hoping the proposed Swimway
will become a reality in the next two to three years.
You can read more details about the project in the blog
post he wrote for National Geographic at https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2018/09/28/volunteer-divers-at-cocos-island-national-park-help-collect-data-for-the-creation-of-the-cocos-galapagos-swimway
And while there's no donation process yet to fund the
Swimway project, you can help protect the turtles and
sharks that use it by donating funds to Swimway proponents
like the Turtle Island Restoration Network (https://seaturtles.org/donate) and the Galapagos Conservation
Trust (https://galapagosconservation.org.uk/projects/endangered-sharks-of-galapagos).