evidence: Aves Island (Venezuela) hosts nesting green turtles in numbers that exceed all other islands in the Lesser Antilles and most locations on the South American continent, along with significant numbers of males and females that congregate for courtship and mating (see SWOT Report, vol. XIII, "Solving the Mysteries of Male Turtles in the Caribbean"). In less than 30 years, monitoring data collected by FUDENA (Fundación para la Defensa de la Naturaleza), the Ministerio del Poder Popular para Ecosocialismo, and the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, or IVIC) have shown that the number of nesting green turtles on Aves Island has doubled to more than 1,000 turtles per year.