SEE Turtles Acquires EcoTeach to Bring Conservation Travel to More Schools

January 14, 2026, Portland OR:

Award-winning conservation nonprofit SEE Turtles is acquiring EcoTeach, a student travel company that has brought thousands of students to Costa Rica over the past 30 years. SEE Turtles —one of the first conservation organizations to focus on conservation travel as a strategy to protect endangered sea turtles —will assume management of EcoTeach in January 2027. As part of SEE Turtles' Conservation Travel program, EcoTeach will retain its name and continue its legacy of connecting students with hands-on sea turtle conservation and life-changing experiences.    

SEE Turtles and EcoTeach have a long history of collaboration, dating back to 2008 when SEE Turtles first began offering tours to work with sea turtle projects. EcoTeach has been the nonprofit’s local operator in Costa Rica, having run more than 40 trips together, with nearly 500 travelers and generating more than US $250,000 for turtle conservation and coastal communities. EcoTeach has also participated in the nonprofit’s annual School Fundraising Contest and Sustainable Travel Auctions, donating trips to raise funds for conservation.

But the history between SEE Turtles and EcoTeach goes back much further. SEE Turtles president and co-founder Brad Nahill first traveled to Costa Rica through an EcoTeach program to volunteer with a sea turtle conservation project in 1999. Two years later, the company funded the first season of a leatherback nesting program in Playa Negra, Costa Rica, led by Nahill and his former wife. Following that, Nahill helped grow the EcoTeach Foundation—a nonprofit arm created to expand conservation efforts in Costa Rica.    

SEE Turtles is a nonprofit that promotes conservation travel across countries including Costa Rica, Mexico, Belize, Panama, Cuba, and Ecuador. It is one of the few travel organizations—nonprofit or otherwise—to offer a transparent pricing model, called Conservation Impact Pricing, which details how each trip financially supports turtle conservation and local communities. To date, SEE Turtles has brought more than 1,700 people to visit sea turtle conservation sites generating an estimated $2 million for conservation and coastal communities. For these efforts, SEE Turtles has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Global Vision Award from Travel + Leisure, the Changemakers Award from the World Travel & Tourism Council, the Sustainable Travel Award from Skal International, and others.

Since 1994, EcoTeach has brought tens of thousands of students to Costa Rica and other destinations. The company has been the primary supporter of Estacion Las Tortugas, a turtle conservation camp on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast for more than 20 years, bringing thousands of students and travelers to visit and generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in income for the project and community. In addition, the EcoTeach Foundation has also raised thousands annually to support conservation and research at the station, including the creation of a turtle education center on-site.    

“We are thrilled to be acquiring one of the most conservation-oriented student travel companies in existence,” says Brad Nahill, President and co-founder of SEE Turtles. “Bringing EcoTeach into our organization will allow us to dramatically grow our conservation travel program — generating more income to protect nesting beaches, fight the illegal turtle trade, reduce plastic pollution, and support sea turtle community leaders.”

For more information, contact:

Brad Nahill, SEE Turtles President

brad@seeturtles.org / 800.215.0378