Nine Countries Meet
to Save Sea Turtles

By Ben White

With a pace as deliberate as that of the creatures it is aiming to protect, the Inter-American Convention for the Conservation and Protection of Sea Turtles (IAC) was launched from August 6-8 in San José, Costa Rica. Eight countries in Latin America plus the United States met in the first conference of the parties. Even though these first days were filled with the mind-numbing tedium of the Articles of Procedure, which will govern the functioning of the body, the group's avowed agenda is ambitious. It aims to halt trade in sea turtle parts, protect their nesting beaches, and tackle the political dynamite of rampant overfishing with highly deleterious methods.

Itching to contribute to the meeting in some way, I worked with Todd Steiner of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project and his Costa Rican colleague Randall Arauz to present our own wish-list of projects that we believe the IAC must address in order to turn the tide of the imminent demise of the sea turtles. Governmental associates at the meeting surprisingly warmly received our presentation (see sidebar).

Todd and Randall also worked with Costa Rica on the first resolution to be brought to the table. It calls for immediate crises measures to stop the crash of the leatherback turtle population in the Pacific Ocean. The largest nesting colony in the world, located in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia, has almost totally collapsed, as have huge nesting colonies in Mexico and Costa Rica. Reasons for the collapse include rampant mortality from long-line and swordfish fisheries, the popularity of turtle eggs for human consumption, and the slaughter of nesting females on Mexican beaches.

The result of the meeting was a new turtle protection  convention with countries promising to listen to activists and enact strong laws. We shall see now if they can move fast enough to catch the declining sea turtles.

NGO Recommendations to the New Sea Turtle Convention

The Parties to the convention should:

* Make decisions based solely on what will benefit sea turtles, regardless of the effects of these decisions on international trade.

* Amend the convention to allow decisions to be made by either simple majority or 2/3 majority instead of the present consensus requirement in order to avoid inaction when deadlocked.

* Support CITES in continuous opposition to all international trade in sea turtle products.

* Urge ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

* Support a moratorium on pelagic long-line fishing in the Eastern Pacific.

* Begin on-board monitoring of long-line fisheries.

* Strengthen enforcement measures, including confiscation of pirate vessels.

* Begin unannounced inspections to verify TEDs (turtle excluder devices) compliance on shrimp vessels.

* Forbid the use of and traffic in leatherback turtle eggs.

* Identify the ten most important nesting sites for each species and ensure their protection.

* Identify critical marine habitats for each species.

* Control the discharge of intense levels of sound, ban military training exercises, oil exploration and drilling in critical habitats.