Source: Environment News Service [1]

03/01/06 

BANGKOK - An international campaign to conserve sea turtles in the Indian Ocean – South-East Asia region was launched today in Bangkok, and a parallel campaign was launched in countries across the Pacific region with a ceremony in Apia, Samoa.

Sea turtles have inhabited the world’s oceans for over 100 million years, migrating thousands of kilometers between feeding and nesting grounds. Today, six of the seven species of marine turtle - hawksbill, olive ridley, Kemp's ridley, leatherback, loggerhead and green - are classified as Endangered or Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

In a statement read during the Bangkok launch, Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado of Japan emphasized the need for cooperation between countries to ensure the survival of these endangered migratory animals.

“Sea turtles are modern ambassadors of our oceans, linking countries and communities around the world," the Princess said. "They are many things to many people: a traditional source of food, the basis of livelihoods centerd on sustainable tourism, a focus of investigative research, or simply an enduring source of inspiration and awe. We all have a common interest in their conservation."

The greatest cause of decline for green sea turtles like this one has been commercial harvest for eggs and food, as well as leather and jewelry. (Photo courtesy NOAA [2])

The regional Year of the Turtle campaign is being coordinated by the Secretariat of the Indian Ocean – South-East Asia (IOSEA) Marine Turtle Memorandum of Understanding which is linked to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The launch is conducted in collaboration with Thailand’s Department of Marine and Coastal Resources.

IOSEA Coordinator Douglas Hykle said, “Many nations are already working hard to conserve these remarkable animals, by protecting important habitats and requiring changes to fishing practices that are harmful to turtles. The Year of the Turtle celebration will recognize the important role of sea turtles in the marine environment, as well as their significant cultural value for people in many countries."

During this Year of the Turtle, a series of public events and activities in 24 countries of the Indian Ocean – South-East Asia under the banner “Cooperating to Conserve Marine Turtles: Our Ocean’s Ambassadors.”

Delegates from the 24 member states that signed the IOSEA Marine Turtle Memorandum of Understanding will gather in Muscat, Oman March 11-14 to discuss a draft leatherback tsunami assessment report on the effects of the Indian Ocean tsunami December 24, 2004, and to review progress in implementing a comprehensive regionwide Conservation and Management Plan.

A key part of the Year of the Turtle campaign will be to unite distant communities in a common cause. In Australia, primary school children are developing a new turtle education guidebook. Beach and reef cleanups are being organized in Thailand, and a two-day underwater festival for divers is taking place at Turtle Island.

In Iran, researchers are tagging hawksbill turtles that nest on Shidvar Island to help track their movements.

Underwater film festivals are planned in the Seychelles to raise public awareness of the marine environment, and in Tanzania, special beach patrols and education for local communities are being organized.

A Turtle Witness Camp is monitoring mass nesting of Olive ridley turtles in Orissa, India that began about 10 days ago. Each winter, hundreds of thousands of Olive ridleys move in synchronized concentrations to three major nesting sites on the Bay of Bengal, considered one of the world's major nesting grounds. After the young ones are hatched, the turtles return to the sea.

Orissa's Chief Wildlife Warden Suresh Mohanty, says he expects around one million turtles to nest in the area this year. In the year 2000, only 700,000 turtles arrived, but in 1997 and 1998 few turtles showed up - there was no mass nesting at all, said Mohanty. The Orissa state government has declared the whole nesting area a marine sanctuary and has banned mechanized trawlers in the state.

Olive ridley turtles on an Orissa beach. The most serious threat to the turtles is the proposed Dhamra Port, at the mouth of the Dhamra river, just north of the Gahirmatha nesting site, the largest rookery in the world for olive ridleys. (Photo courtesy Sanctuary Asia [3])

Accidental killing of sea turtles in fishing gear, damage to turtle nesting beaches and coral reefs, and unsustainable consumption are among the threats sea turtles face.

In Malaysia, annual counts of leatherback turtle nests have dropped from 5,000 in the 1960s to less than 10 in recent years. Elsewhere, illegal turtle harvests continue to occur. Last week in Indonesia, police apprehended a fishing boat off of Bali carrying 158 green turtles, most of which were released back into the wild.

“Human activities over the past 200 years have massively tipped the scales against the survival of these ancient mariners,” says Elisabeth McLellan, WWF Asia Pacific Marine Turtle Coordinator.

“Slaughtered in the thousands for their eggs, meat, skin, and shells, they suffer from poaching and over-exploitation, as well as from capture in fishing gear and habitat loss," McLellan said. "But there are places where concerted conservation efforts are making a difference to turtle numbers. We hope that this initiative galvanises countries to act together before it’s too late.”

To mark the Year of the Turtle, WWF has declared Derawan Island, one of the the biggest green and hawksbill turtle rookeries in South-East Asia, as a Marine Conservation Area.

The global conservation group is monitoring and protecting nesting sites in and around Kenya's Kiunga Marine National Reserve, satellite tagging of marine turtles in Vietnam, and introducing circle hooks to tuna fleets in the Philippines to reduce the numbers of turtles accidentally caught in fishing gear.

WWF also is establishing a joint research partnership between Madagascar, Switzerland and France to study marine turtles in the southwest Indian Ocean.

Natural disasters, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami, have taken a toll on sea turtle populations. A draft report discussed at the launch reveals that the tsunami had a profound impact on local communities that had been working with turtle conservation projects in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The process of rebuilding these bonds now has begun.

India’s remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, home to about 500 nesting leatherback turtles, were hard hit by the tsunami, which occurred during the peak of turtle nesting season. The tsunami destroyed several nesting beaches and inundated many coastal areas.

Leatherbacks are the largest of the marine turtles. Incidental take in commercial fisheries and marine pollution, harvest of eggs and meat and the major threats to this species. (Photo courtesy NOAA)

“In the short-term, thousands of unhatched turtle eggs would have been destroyed,” said Dr. Mark Hamann, compiler of the IOSEA leatherback tsunami assessment, “but the impacts of the tsunami need to be viewed over a longer time scale. Leatherback turtles have been breeding in the region for thousands of years, and will have survived similar natural calamities in the past.”

Elsewhere, there is evidence to show that conservation efforts are succeeding, with some areas reporting increased sea turtle populations – but there is still much work to do.

One effective measure is the use of turtle excluder devices (TEDs) on fishing gear, a condition the United States places on imports of fish from turtle range states such as Pakistan.

A two-member team from the United States visited the Karachi fish harbor in February to inspect measures for the conservation of endangered green turtles - a condition the US attaches to seafood imports from Pakistan.

A senior official at the Sindh Fisheries Ministry told the "Daily Times," that the U.S. team visited the Karachi fish harbor for the first time in 1999 and again most recently in March 2005.

"Now more than 17,000 trawlers and fishing boats are registered with the Karachi Fisheries Harbour Authority that operate in the Arabian Sea," said the official. "They all have been using TEDs for the past more than five years and the U.S. team visit actually ensures its consistency and sometimes they ask for more measures."

Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of UNEP, said, “In 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, governments agreed to reverse the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. Sea turtles are in many ways flagship species. If we can conserve turtles we can do a lot for other marine life forms and thus help the world meet the 2010 target. I wish the organizers and those involved every success.”

The Year of the Turtle will run through December 31, 2006, with events planned at country and local levels throughout the Indian Ocean – South-East Asia region.

For more information about Year of the Turtle in the Indian Ocean – South-East Asia region visit: www.ioseaturtles.org [4]; for the Pacific Ocean region go to: www.sprep.org [5]