With the help of our supporters, the Sea Turtle Restoration Project achieved the following in 2009:

We prevented the reopening of drift gillnet fishing in the Leatherback Conservation Area off the U.S. West Coast, and also the creation of a new longline fishery within California's Exclusive Economic Zone.

 We forced the U.S. government to agree to respond to our petitions for increased protections for Pacific leatherbacks in the waters off California and Oregon and North Pacific and western North Atlantic loggerheads.

We saved the lives of potentially hundreds of sea turtles when a lawsuit we filed with partners forced a six-month emergency closure of the Gulf of Mexico bottom longline fishery, which was catching and killing large numbers of turtles.

 We compelled the California Attorney General's office to enforce fines in establishments serving or selling mercury-contaminated seafood for noncompliance with California's Proposition 65 Toxics 'Right-to-Know' Law.

 We prompted a ban by the U.S. government of shrimp imports from Costa Rica due to the country's failure to enforce its laws that require commercial shrimp fishers to protect sea turtles from capture and death in trawl nets by using Turtle Excluder Devices.

 We expanded our sea turtle nesting beach projects in Costa Rica so that three permanent beaches and two pilot projects comprising 25 continuous miles of beaches on the Nicoya Peninsula are now monitored by biologists working with volunteers.

 We launched the Cocos Island Monitoring and Research (C-MAR) sea turtle and shark-tagging program, in order to gather data to demonstrate the importance of the Cocos Ridge Corridor to marine wildlife and compel greater protection for these species from industrial fishing.

 We gained the support of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature for establishment of a model, cooperative protected marine 'swimway' in the Cocos Ridge Corridor.

 We established the first marine protection Conservation Deed Trust to protect Pacific leatherback sea turtle nesting beaches in Papua New Guinea, successfully transferring this policy model from its forest protection origins.

We pushed the mining company Nautilus, Inc. to halt its plans to introduce destructive sea-floor mining in Papua New Guinea waters, which would adversely affect the marine environment, including sea turtle habitat, and which the indigenous population depends on for its livelihood.