Mexican legal and administrative framework for the evaluation of sea turtle restoration programs

Abstract

This document provides a historical overview of the National Sea Turtle Conservation Program (pnctm) from the perspective of public policies on environmental matters. Initially, a timeline is presented, highlighting some of the most significant events since the beginning of the pnctm, considered one of the oldest conservation programs in Mexico. In the second part, the conceptual framework that underlies the Conservation of Species at Risk Program (pace) is analyzed as the tool for managing public policy and that, as such, must be subject to processes essential for project management, such as evaluation. In this context, the importance of the evaluation processes of public policies (their programs and projects) is highlighted as a means for insight that led to improvements in their contents and in the processes of program implementation, orienting them towards adaptive management to improve results. In this case, this entails the recovery of sea turtle populations. An overview of some exercises for the evaluation of species recovery plans at the international level and in Mexico is presented. From this we conclude that there is a critical urgency to evaluate the results of the recovery plans, such as pace. Keywords: Environmental public policy, public policy evaluation, sea turtles, PACE