page_title: Grande Riviere
section_title: Ecotourism
hierarchical_section_title: Grande Riviere / Ecotourism
caption_attribution_description: English: Leatherback turtle in Grande Riviere, Trinidad
context_page_description: Grande Riviere is a village on the north coast of Trinidad located between Toco and Matelot. The area was originally settled by immigrants from Venezuela and Tobago who cultivated cacao and subsistence crops. After falling cocoa prices in the 1920s and expanding pest problems caused the collapse of the cocoa industry, Grande Riviere went into a decline which continued until the development of ecotourism. Between 1931 and 2000 the population of Grande Riviere fell from 718 to 334.
  Grande Riviere is one of the more remote settlement in Trinidad and Tobago. It is 60 kilometres from Sangre Grande and 100 km from the capital Port of Spain. It is accessible via a single paved road which runs from Toco to its east and is separated from the rest of the island by the hills of the Northern Range.
context_section_description: In 1992, following the success of Nature Seekers in Matura, the Grande Riviere Environmental Awareness Trust (GREAT) was established with the aim of protecting nesting Leatherback turtles on Grande Riviere beach.  The following year Italian photographer Piero Guerrini rented the former cocoa estate headquarters and converted it into a 12-room beach front hotel, Mt. Plasir.  The hotel was very successful and was eventually joined by three other hotels - Le Grande Almandier hotel, a 10-room hotel, McEachnie’s Haven, a six-room hotel, and Acajou, a 7-room ecological boutique-hotel.  In addition, villagers started renting rooms to visitors.  
  GREAT began training tour guides, but a subsequent split led to the formation of Grande Riviere Nature Tour Guides Association (GRNTGA) which focussed more on tour guides, while the remainder of GREAT focussed on protection of turtle hatchlings.  In addition to sea turtles, there is an interest in nature tourism more broadly, including the critically endangered pawi (Trinidad piping-guan, the only bird species endemic to Trinidad).
caption: A leatherback turtle nesting on a beach in Grande Riviere.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 5D Mark II", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.1 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2014:05:22 13:43:44", "Image Artist": "Jordan Beard", "Image ExifOffset": "254", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/3200", "EXIF FNumber": "7/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:05:22 06:25:26", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:05:22 06:25:26", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "7487/643", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3331/3431", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-2", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "1", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "43", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "43", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "667", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "127024/33", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "605762/155", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF CameraOwnerName": "Jordan Beard", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "Jordan Beard", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[50, 50, 0, 0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF50mm f/1.4 USM"}