Puerto Rico Protects Endangered Leatherback Sea Turtle Nesting Site: Victory for Environmentalists

Leatherback sea turtles may be getting some help from lawmakers. Puerto Rico has introduced a new law that protects a swathe of the island's coast that has become a major nesting site for the endangered turtle.

The largest turtles on Earth, leatherback sea turtles can grow up to seven feet long and exceed 2,000 pounds. They're currently the last, living representatives of a family of turtles that traces its evolutionary roots back more than 100 million years. Unlike their reptilian relatives, they're able to maintain warm body temperatures even in cold water by using a unique set of adaptations that allow them to generate and retain body heat.

For 15 years, environmentalists have battled against developers who have wanted to build hotels, golf courses and luxury homes on the beaches that the leatherback turtles have claimed. Now, their efforts are finally paying off. The newly protected beaches are likely to become a center for ecotourism rather than development, according to BBC News.

"This is so exciting," said Angie Colon, an official with a nonprofit activist group that fought to preserve the land, in an interview with The Huffington Post. "I'm still coming to terms with the fact that this is real."

The stretch of land covers 2,900 acres of pristine beaches, featuring ecosystems that range from subtropical dry forest to tropical rainforest. It plays home to more than 861 different types of flora and fauna, including 50 rare, endemic or threatened species.

The announcement doesn't come too soon, either. The leatherback sea turtle is highly endangered. Rising temperatures on beaches affect how many eggs hatch, and people in some areas still hunt leatherback turtles. The Pacific leatherback turtle population in particular has continued to decline.

"If the decline continues, leatherback turtles will become extinct in the Pacific Ocean within 20 years," said Than Wibbels, a reproductive biologist at the University of Alabama who is studying the turtles, in an interview with Reuters.

Fortunately, Puerto Rico and other countries are taking strides to protect these turtles. The U.S. Virgin Islands and the Dominican Republic have also stepped up to protect crucial habitat for the species.

"Today this important, highly ecologically valuable resource is being protected forever... History is being made," said Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla, according to the island's Vocero news site.