Project Description
Location: USA, and pacific ocean
Primary stakeholders: Private sector, NGOs, researchers
Sector/industry: Fisheries
Primary extractive or damaging activities: Overfishing due to bycatch
Affected ecosystem(s) and biodiversity: Pacific Sea Turtles
Goal: Healthy sea turtle populations
Metric(s): Total mortality (from bycatch) and survival to maturity (from nesting habitat protection)
Mitigation & Conservation actions: The Bellagio Blueprint for Action on Pacific Sea Turtles (2004) takes a holistic approach to turtle conservation in the Pacific ocean, which address multiple sources of anthropogenic mortality at critical stages in sea turtle’s life cycle. These include: effective protection of turtle nesting beaches through beach conservation (refrain, with funding via renew), reduced take (reduce and restore) of turtles in large-scale, commercial fishing fleets, and sustainability of traditional use (reduce) in subsistence, small-scale and artisanal coastal fisheries. See four steps diagram below for details.
Stage of implementation and associated outcomes: Implementation stage – an integrated approach to sea turtle conservation is ongoing, via the Blueprint for Action on Pacific Sea Turtles.
Needs and next steps: Analysis of whether or not the strategy is successful at delivering overall population recovery (i.e. net gain) goals.
Key resources and references:
- Reconciling Biodiversity with Fishing: A Holistic Strategy for Pacific Sea Turtle Recovery
- A Holistic Strategy for Pacific Sea Turtle Conservation
- A Mitigation Hierarchy Approach for Managing Sea Turtle Captures in Small-Scale Fisheries
- Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Conservation Strategies with Application to the Pacific Leatherback Turtle
- The least-cost biodiversity impact mitigation hierarchy with a focus on marine fisheries and bycatch issues
- ISSF – Sea turtles
