Playa del Carmen Has Logged More Than 2,000 Turtle Nests This Season

More than two thousand sea turtle nests have been recorded on Playa del Carmen's beaches in the 2026 season, across three species, holding 91,859 eggs between them. The number worth sitting with is not the nests. It is that 1,200 of them are monitored directly by the city council, and the rest by private companies and civil organisations, which tells you the work is being done by hotels and residents as much as by government.

The figures were presented on August 28 by Yamilli Colli Cach, deputy director of environmental education and outreach, at the first session of the Committee for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles.

The season so far

Green turtles account for the bulk of it, with 1,548 nests and 65,603 eggs. Loggerheads follow at 434 nests and 22,505 eggs. Hawksbills, the rarest of the three here, account for 18 nests.

Hatchlings counted to date come to 22,431. That figure needs reading carefully, because the season runs from May to October and a large share of the nests laid in the later months are still in the sand. A hatchling count taken in August against an egg count for the whole season is not a survival rate, and treating it as one would understate what is happening on those beaches.

Alongside the monitoring, 2,070 people have been trained in sea turtle protection this season, 2,095 have taken part in awareness events, and 283 volunteers have joined beach cleanups.

Akumal, where the turtles are the name

Twenty minutes south, Akumal has the longer relationship with this. The name means place of the turtles in Maya, and it is not decorative: green turtles feed on the seagrass in Akumal bay year round, which is why people swim there, and both green and loggerhead turtles nest on the beaches. Loggerhead nests have been confirmed at Akumal again this season.

That combination, a resident feeding population and a nesting population on the same stretch, is the reason access to parts of the bay is regulated, guides are required in places, and the rules tighten during the season. Visitors sometimes read that as bureaucracy. It is the reason there is still something to see.

What this does and does not prove

It does not prove the populations are recovering. Nest counts move for many reasons, a single strong season is not a trend, and the report carries no comparison with previous years, so anyone drawing a line through these numbers is drawing it through one point.

Both green and loggerhead turtles remain endangered.

What it does show is the scale of the operation now running on this coast every summer, and who is running it. Two thousand nests found, marked and watched over five months, by a municipal team, private operators and volunteers working the same beaches, is a substantial piece of coordinated work happening in the middle of one of Mexico's busiest tourist corridors.

For anyone with a house on those beaches, it is also the reason the lighting rules, the setback rules and the seasonal restrictions exist, and the reason they get enforced.

Sources: Playa del Carmen 2026 sea turtle season figures by species, egg and hatchling totals, monitoring split, training and volunteer numbers, presented by Yamilli Colli Cach at the first session of the Committee for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles, reported by Riviera Maya News, 28 August 2026. Akumal nesting species and 2026 loggerhead confirmation, Riviera Maya reporting and published research on Caretta caretta nesting activity on Akumal beaches.