WHAT CAN BE DONE TO RESTORE PACIFIC TURTLE POPULATIONS?
The Bellagio Blueprint for Action on Pacific Sea Turtles
6 January 2004

Protect all nesting beaches, starting with those of the Pacific leatherbacks

The Bellagio Blueprint for Action calls for a massive mobilization of effort to protect the 10 remaining leatherback turtle nesting sites around the Pacific from human take, predation and habitat degradation. The 10 beaches are shown on the map. The goal is to protect every nest possible to ensure a maximal hatchling production that can sustain the recovery of depleted populations.

Figure 1. Key leatherback nesting sites remaining in the Pacific The 10 principal leatherback nesting sites remaining in the Pacific  1. Terrenganu, Malaysia  2. War Mon, Papua-Indonesia  3. Jamursba-Medi, Papua-Indonesia  4. Papua New Guinea  5. Solomon Islands  6. Baja California, Mexico  7. Michoacan, Mexico  8. Guerrero, Mexico  9. Oaxaca, Mexico 10. Las Baulas, Costa Rica

(i) Protecting nesting beaches has proven to work in restoring sea turtle populations

• A good example is that of Kemp’s ridley turtle in the Gulf of Mexico. In the Gulf of Mexico, nesting beach protection was effective at halting the extinction of the Kemp’s ridley turtle, once the most critically endangered sea turtle in the world. A massive effort was mobilized in the 1970s to protect the last remaining nesting beach by moving all the nests to the safety of a beach hatchery each season. By the late 1980s, the population began to show signs of recovery, which was further enhanced by eliminating trawling in front of the nesting beaches. This recovery accelerated in the 1990s, after a total ban on sea turtle extraction in Mexico and the use of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) in shrimp trawls in Mexico and United States to protect ridley turtles from coastal fishery mortality.
• Leatherback turtles nesting in South Africa are also showing signs of recovery. In South Africa, there has been a steady increase in the nesting population of leatherbacks since the 1970s, when beach conservation was begun. An increasing population trend has also occurred throughout the Caribbean due to nesting beach protection.

(ii) All nesting beaches must be protected, starting with those for leatherbacks and loggerheads

• Leatherback extinction in the Pacific is inevitable if nesting beaches are not protected and, in some cases, restored. A necessary though not sufficient condition for reversing the catastrophic decline in leatherback populations is to protect all nesting beaches so as to maximize the production of eggs. This means halting all take of eggs for direct human consumption, and preventing predation by pigs and other animals. In beaches where erosion washes away nests, eggs should be moved to safer sites. At beaches where the temperature regime has been altered (e.g. through removing shade trees), careful artificial incubation of the eggs or artificial shading of nests can be used to provide the correct incubation conditions for the temperature-sensitive turtle eggs. Good scientific knowledge is now available on appropriate conditions to avoid artificially biasing the sex ratios of the turtles and this needs to be applied widely.
• Because of natal homing, each stock tends to be unique. As populations have become depleted and only a few are left, all stocks must be protected and this equates to protecting all nesting beaches. Scientists believe that most nesting beaches have been identified and that these should all be recorded and monitored.

(iii) Nesting beaches can be protected by engaging local communities, biologists, volunteers, law enforcement officers, and others in conservation and providing the funds to make this possible:

• A promising example of how local people can help protect nesting beaches is at the important but remote leatherback nesting site in Papua Indonesia (Jarmurbsa-Medi). At this site, in the Birdshead area of Papua Indonesia, the World Wildlife Fund (Indonesia) is working with local people to protect nesting sites from predation and the erosion of natural forces and those of logging in the hinterland.
• Community-based efforts in Kamiali, Papua New Guinea to protect nesting beaches are supported by the Western Pacific Fisheries Management Advisory Council of the United States of America (WPFMC). A coastal community in Kamiali, working in conjunction with the South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP), Kamiali Integrated Conservation Development Group (KICDG) and NOAA Fisheries, is protecting leatherback nesting beaches. This coastal community is protecting eggs from poaching and animal predators, maintaining habitat integrity by preventing the beach from use by commercial logging interests, and participating in research projects aimed to better understand the life history of leatherbacks.
• Funds are also needed to support beach protection. Depending on the circumstances, these funds would be used for land purchase (e.g. a suitable leatherback nesting beach could be purchased in Costa Rica), community development/retraining (ecotourism), co-management support costs (Mexico, Papua New Guinea), and purchase of logging and other land use concessions and long-term leases (Papua Indonesia). These costs could be financed in part as mitigation of sea turtle mortality from industry and developed nations (e.g. logging, high seas fisheries), and other mechanisms, e.g. by creating a Global Trust Fund.
• Many beach protection plans have not been implemented due to lack of funds. Only 50 percent of the leatherback nesting beaches in Mexico are currently protected and several proposals remain unfounded for Guatemala, Nicaragua and Papua New Guinea.