Did you know that there’s a deep connection between chocolate, ancient wisdom, and saving sea turtles? It all started for me in 2023 when I revisited the Arhuaco community in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. We were talking about cacao, but also something incredibly important: sea turtle conservation. I had just joined the board of the Amazon Conservation Team, which partners with the Arhuaco and Kogi people on a project called Ancestral Tides.
Along their Caribbean coast, sea turtle nests were being poached with the eggs sold as a delicacy. To protect them, we blended modern conservation strategies with the community’s own ancestral wisdom. The elders guided us on how to carefully relocate the nests, creating safe hatcheries to boost the survival rate of the baby turtles. To honor this work, I created a special dark milk chocolate bar with sea salt, symbolizing the connection between the land and the sea: Castronovo Chocolate Arhuacos 60% Dark Milk Chocolate with Sea Salt.
To the Arhuaco, the sea turtle isn’t just an animal. It’s a sacred being with a mission to maintain the balance between the land and the ocean. They believe if this balance is broken, the turtle cannot survive nor can our planet. And right now, we are seeing this happen with the near-collapse of the Hawksbill turtle species. It’s a crisis that requires global action. By linking coastal communities in Colombia, Panama, Mexico, and Costa Rica, Ancestral Tides builds a cross-border alliance for sea turtle survival.
This indigenous wisdom is profoundly powerful. The Amazon Conservation Team brought a Kogi Mamo, a spiritual leader, to the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, a place he had never been. He walked along the shore of the Golfo Dulce and pointed to a specific spot, telling us, “This is the sacred site. This is where you must work.” We set up our hatchery right there. Our scientific data later confirmed what he knew all along: he had identified the single most important nesting ground for the critically endangered Hawksbill sea turtle in the area.
The Osa Peninsula is a global treasure; a hotspot of biodiversity that is home to half of all of Costa Rica’s animal and plant species. The waters of the Golfo Dulce are a nursery for humpback whales, a breeding ground for hammerhead sharks, and a nesting area for four different sea turtle species.
Our work there has just begun. The Amazon Conservation Team is now raising funds to purchase 40 acres of land to restore a cattle pasture back into a thriving native forest. This will create a vital wildlife corridor for jaguars, monkeys, and macaws and provide a permanent home for our Ancestral Tides project and sea turtle hatchery. It will be a center for learning, research, and conservation.
If you want to help us protect this incredible biodiversity and support this vital work, you can. This Giving Tuesday, November 3rd, we are donating 20% of all our sales directly to the Ancestral Tides project. Your support helps us continue this partnership, blending ancient knowledge with modern science to protect our planet’s more precious species.
Thank you for being part of this story. We have a video to accompany this story on our youtube channel.
Sincerely,
Denise Castronovo