2. Whether Sea Turtles Are a Shared Global Resource

3.36. The United States submitted that sea turtles were a shared global resource. All species of sea turtles except the flatback (which was restricted to waters around Australia) regularly spent all or part of their lives in waters subject to US jurisdiction in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Caribbean Sea. Sea turtles being highly migratory creatures, moving in and out of a variety of ocean and coastal habitats, the species found in US waters swam across vast expanses of the high seas and through waters under the jurisdiction of many other countries. For example, recent DNA analyses revealed that some leatherback sea turtles in American Samoa were from a Malaysian/Indonesian stock, that loggerhead sea turtles found off the Pacific coast of the United States were known to nest in Japan and Australia and that green sea turtles in US Pacific Island territories might have ranges extending to the South China Sea.⁷⁸ Sea turtles served important functions in the ecosystems which they inhabited. For example, the regular presence of green turtles made seagrass beds more productive, caused nutrients to be cycled more rapidly, and gave the grass blades a higher protein content, thus benefiting other species. Furthermore, some populations of sea turtles, whose feeding areas might be hundreds or even thousands of kilometres from their nesting beaches, served an important role in nutrient cycling by transporting massive quantities of nutrients from these feeding grounds to typically more nutrient-poor coastal habitats in the vicinity of nesting beaches. Efforts by one nation to protect sea turtles would not succeed unless other nations in whose waters these species also occurred took comparable measures.

3.37. With respect to the US argument that sea turtles were a shared global resource, India noted that five species of sea turtles had been recorded in the waters and on the beaches of India, including the green turtle, the olive ridley, the leatherback, the hawksbill and the loggerhead. None of the evidence cited by the United States demonstrated that sea turtles found in the US areas subject to the TEDs requirement migrated to Indian territorial seas or beaches. Further, with respect to the olive ridley, the 1990 report cited by the United States specifically stated that "[t]he olive ridley, although probably the most numerous sea turtle worldwide, is very rare in US waters, and its status and future are not in the main, a direct United States responsibility".⁷⁹ The olive ridley population nesting in India�s territorial waters, however, had increased substantially over the last ten years. India noted that long term tagging of the Gahirmatha sea turtle population had demonstrated that tagged olive ridley sea turtles frequently visited their nesting beach several times a year, proving that they did not engage in such long distance migration as alleged by the United States. Further, only 2 out of the nearly 20,000 tagged olive ridley sea turtles had been recovered off the coast of Sri Lanka, which was proximate to the Indian coast. No long distance recovery of tagged Gahirmatha sea turtles had been recorded in any other Indian Ocean country. At most, therefore, significant numbers of sea turtles would appear to migrate regionally, but not globally.

3.38. Malaysia submitted that there was as yet no data to show that green turtles in the US Pacific had ranges extending to the South China Sea.⁸⁰ The definitive data available was: (i) green turtles nesting in Pulau Redang, Terengganu, had been tracked by satellite to feeding grounds occurring off Palawan Island (Philippines), west coast of Sabah, Bangka Island of Sumatra (Indonesia) and Natuna Island of Indonesia⁸¹; and (ii) green and hawksbill turtles tagged while nesting in the Turtle Islands of Sabah had been recovered in Palau Islands, Sangalalei, Cempadak and Kai Islands (Indonesia) and the Philippines.⁸² There was no documentation showing that turtles which nested in the United States migrated to waters of India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand. So far studies on long-distance migration of turtles showed that, although sea turtles were distributed globally, they migrated only within regions, and not globally.⁸³ This was the reason why sea turtle treaties and conservation programmes were made between nations on a regional basis and not a global basis. As examples of the regional cooperation, Malaysia mentioned the TIHPA Memorandum of Agreement, which had been concluded between Sabah and the Philippines, the Inter-American Convention and the Regional Marine Turtle Conservation Programme of SREP (South Pacific Regional Environment Programme).⁸⁴

3.39. Pakistan observed that two species of sea turtles nested on Pakistani coasts (the green and the olive ridley). As stated by India, the olive ridley's status and future were not a direct US responsibility. Further, none of the sources cited by the United States demonstrated that the green turtle found in waters fished by Pakistani shrimpers migrated to US territorial waters during their life cycles.⁸⁵ In fact, the sources cited by the United States concluded that "Florida green turtles make use of the extensive seagrass meadows and coral reefs in the Florida Keys as resident foraging habitats".⁸⁶ If sea turtles were as highly migratory as claimed by the United States, the exclusion of certain US shrimp fisheries and the shrimp fisheries of other nations from the TEDs requirement would appear to be unjustified. In that regard, the 1990 report cited by the United States noted that "[i]n US Atlantic waters, green turtles occur around the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and from Texas to Massachsetts".⁸⁷ In addition, other turtles which occurred in US waters also occurred in waters north of the Virginia-North Carolina border.⁸⁸ Further, the report indicated that US shrimp fishing zones extended along the Atlantic coast, including the area north of the Virginia-North Carolina border to and including parts of the Maine coast.⁸⁹ Moreover, the report showed that turtle strandings did occur on beaches adjacent to the fishing zones north of the Virginia-North Carolina border.⁹⁰

3.40. Thailand noted that while sea turtles did migrate regionally (e.g. between the United States and the Caribbean), they were not defined as "highly migratory" in the UN Convention on Straddling Fish Stock and Highly Migratory Species. Further, it was doubtful that any sea turtle ranged from US territorial waters to Thai territorial waters.⁹¹ In fact, the 1990 report cited by the United States noted that the olive ridley (the most abundant species of sea turtle in Thailand), "is very rare in US waters, and its status and future are not in the main, a direct United States responsibility".⁹² Thailand was aware of no record of sea turtles from maritime waters around the North American continent being found in the waters of Southeast Asia. In fact, a tagging study conducted in Thailand demonstrated that juvenile sea turtles remained close to nesting areas. Most sea turtles tagged and released at 3-6 months were recaptured within 8 months of their initial release.⁹³ Furthermore, Thailand was aware of no doctrine of international law that would permit the United States to regulate unilaterally the use or conservation of a "shared global resource" without the consent of other nations in whose jurisdiction activities took place that could affect that resource. Certainly, the United States had failed to cite any such doctrine or source of law.

3.41. Thailand noted that the United States appeared to argue that Thailand had incomplete jurisdiction with respect to sea turtles that nested on Thai beaches and swam in Thai waters or, at least, that the United States shared jurisdiction with Thailand over such resources. As set forth in the LOS Convention, however, a coastal State had sovereign rights, including the right to establish conservation measures, with respect to natural resources found in territorial sea, contiguous zone and exclusive economic zone. It was the conservation measures adopted by the coastal State that applied within waters subject to the coastal State's sovereignty, not the conservation measures of a State thousands of miles away. If a resource was truly shared between two or more States, those States had a duty to cooperate to resolve resource management issues, but this did not change the fact that it was the conservation policy of the coastal State that applied in its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone. The fact that sea turtles might be found on the high seas was irrelevant. There had been no showing in this case that the measure in question was tailored to prevent the importation of shrimp caught on the high seas as opposed to shrimp caught in Thailand's territorial waters and exclusive economic zone. Moreover, while it was correct that no one State had jurisdiction over the high seas, international law dictated that management of resources found in the high seas should be resolved through cooperative action by interested States. While the United States might establish fishing regulations with respect to its own nationals and flag vessels which operated on the high seas, there was no basis in international law for the United States to determine unilaterally what conservation policies were to be followed by all other nations on the high seas.

3.42. The United States reiterated that the very attempt by the complainants to characterize certain sea turtles as "under their jurisdiction" was inaccurate both as a matter of fact and of international law. The same species of sea turtles occurred in the waters subject to the jurisdiction of many nations, as well as on the high seas, an area in which no nation exercised exclusive jurisdiction but in which all nations had a common interest. Moreover, scientific evidence revealed that sea turtles were highly migratory, i.e. that individual sea turtles often swam thousands of kilometres, across vast expanses of open ocean and across dozens of international boundaries. In that regard, the argument made by the complainants that, because few turtles migrated from US waters to their waters, the United States was not entitled to adopt the measures at issue was irrelevant. Sea turtles were a shared global resource, which could only be effectively protected and conserved if trawling-related mortality was reduced throughout their range, by the combined action of many nations.

3.43. India submitted that the statement that "the same species of sea turtles occur in the waters subject to the jurisdiction of many nations, as well as on the high seas, an area in which no nation exercises exclusive jurisdiction but in which all nations have a common interest" was incorrect. Long distance global migration of sea turtles inhabiting Indian coastal waters had not been established by scientific studies. In fact, the current approach among the experts in this field appeared to be on regional conservation measures to achieve effective sea turtle conservation.⁹⁴

3.44. Malaysia agreed that the same species of sea turtles occurred in waters subject to the jurisdiction of many nations. However, the various populations of the same species which occurred in different regions were distinct populations which did not mix and interbreed with populations occurring in other regions, even though they might be of the same species. For instance, the green turtle populations of Malaysia did not migrate to US waters; therefore, the United States did not have jurisdiction over them, even though the same species might occur in the United States.

3.45. The United States noted that IUCN, the "experts in this field" referred to by India, had in fact prepared a Global Strategy for the Protection of Marine Turtles in 1995.⁹⁵ IUCN was in the process of developing regional strategies as a means to implement its overall global strategy. The recommendations of the regional strategy papers, including the use of TEDs, were very similar to those found in the global strategy paper. As to the tagging studies referred to by India to support the argument that sea turtles migrated only within confined areas, the United States said that these studies only yielded data if a tagged turtle happened to be found later in its life cycle in another location. In other parts of the world, where satellite tracking had been used, sea turtles could be followed continuously and had been found to migrate thousands of kilometres, as confirmed by DNA analyses.⁹⁶ Malaysia admitted that sea turtles had been formerly caught by driftnets on the high seas, which reflected their understanding that sea turtles certainly crossed international boundaries in the course of their lives.

3.46. India replied that the reference to the IUCN regional strategy established that even the IUCN had not considered it effective to deal with protection and conservation of endangered sea turtles on a global basis, and had evolved towards regional strategies. This reinforced India's point that sea turtles were not highly migratory. Regarding the migratory behaviour of sea turtles, India noted that the United States did not provide specific scientific data regarding endangered sea turtles found in Indian waters, while making general assertions on this issue.

3. Role of Shrimp Trawl Fishing in Sea Turtle Extinction

3.47. The United States submitted that, as recently as the 19th century, sea turtles were very abundant, with some populations numbering well into the millions.⁹⁷ Today, all species of sea turtles faced the danger of extinction, primarily because of human activities. For example:

• In 1946, an estimated 40,000 female Kemp's ridley sea turtles nested on the beach at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico in a single day. By 1988, only an estimated 650 nested at the same site throughout the entire nesting season.⁹⁸
• A 1996 study of the four major Pacific nesting beaches of leatherback turtles, which sustained as much as half of all global nesting for the species, found that the world's largest population of endangered leatherback turtles had collapsed. The decline at one of the sites had progressed at an annual rate of 23 per cent for the last twelve years.⁹⁹
• Hawksbill populations had shrunk 80 per cent or more in the last three generations. ¹⁰⁰
• The Southeast Asian and Indian Ocean regions had experienced particularly alarming declines in sea turtle populations, even with respect to olive ridley sea turtles, which were the most abundant species.
• In Malaysia, the Terengganu stock of nesting olive ridley turtles had shrunk from possibly thousands annually to approximately 20 each year.¹⁰¹
• In Thailand, the number of olive ridley turtles from the Andaman Sea that nested each year was now numbered in the tens.¹⁰²
• Other species had also declined dramatically.¹⁰³

3.48. The United States considered that the international community had responded to the imperiled global status of sea turtles. Since 1975, all species of sea turtles had appeared on Appendix I to the CITES. Similarly, all species except the flatback were listed in Appendices I and II to the CMS and in Appendix II of the Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife to the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region.¹⁰⁴ Since the 1970s, all species of sea turtles that occurred in waters subject to US jurisdiction had been listed as either endangered or threatened under the US Endangered Species Act of 1973.¹⁰⁵

3.49. Sea turtles faced a variety of threats in both the marine and nesting environments. However, the incidental capture and drowning of sea turtles in shrimp trawl nets had caused the greatest number of human-induced sea turtle deaths, accounting for more deaths than all other human activities combined.¹⁰⁶ For this reason, the Marine Turtle Specialist Group of the IUCN (World Conservation Union) identified reduction of sea turtle mortality in such trawling operations as a priority action item.¹⁰⁷ The United States submitted that, as early as 1982, it was recognized that "shrimp trawlers were considered to capture and drown more sea turtles worldwide than any other form of incidental capture".¹⁰⁸ Illustrative examples of the effects of trawling on these endangered species included:

• A 1994 survey of India's Orissa coast documented 5,000 dead olive ridley sea turtles and concluded that "these deaths were due to accidental capture in trawl nets".¹⁰⁹ Another study similarly concluded that the drowning of the turtles at Gahirmatha, India, during breeding season due to mechanized boats, including trawlers, had become a "major threat" to these species.¹¹⁰
• The drastic decline of sea turtles in waters off Thailand, in both the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand, had resulted in significant part from heavy fishing activities, including trawling.
• In Malaysia, the incidental capture of sea turtles in fishing trawls in Terengganu waters had contributed significantly to a catastrophic decline of what had been once the largest nesting sea turtle population in the Malaysian Peninsula.
• Sea turtle researchers from countries in the Northern Indian Ocean region, including India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Bangladesh, had identified incidental capture in trawl nets and other fishing gear as a significant threat to sea turtle populations in the region.
• An analysis of 25 years of loggerhead sea turtle data from Queensland, Australia concluded that "the [prawn] trawling industry has probably been the major contributor to the decline in eastern Australian population numbers".¹¹¹
• In Croatia, trawlers have been identified as the number one source of incidental take, accounting for 70 per cent of the estimated 2,500 sea turtles captured incidentally in Croatian fisheries each year.¹¹²

3.50. Data from the United States also vividly demonstrated the threat that sea turtles faced from shrimp trawl nets. Before the late 1980s, when the US government first required shrimp trawl vessels to use TEDs, an estimated 5,000 to 50,000 loggerhead turtles and 500 to 5,000 Kemp's ridley turtles drowned in trawl nets pulled by US shrimp vessels each year. Most of these turtles were juveniles and subadults, the age and size classes most critical to the stability and recovery of sea turtle populations.¹¹³ In general, the accidental capture and drowning of sea turtles during fishing had been the major cause of the continuing decline in the United States of these species, despite improved beach protection throughout the 1970s.

To Continue With Chapter 3.51

⁷⁸ B.W. Bowen, (1995), Tracking Marine Turtles with Genetic Markers, BioScience, Vol. 45, p. 528; P.H. Dutton, et. al., (1997), Genetic Stock ID of Turtles Caught in the Pacific Longline Fishery, paper presented at the Seventeenth Annual Symposium of Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. The United States observed that other examples of the highly migratory nature of sea turtles abounded. For example, recent DNA analyses indicated that 57 per cent of sea turtles found in Western Mediterranean waters derived from western Atlantic nesting populations. Ibid. Loggerhead sea turtles hatched on the beaches of eastern Florida were swept by ocean currents to the eastern Atlantic Ocean before returning to US coastal waters many years later. US Department of Commerce, et. al., (1993), Recovery Plan for U.S. Population of Loggerhead Turtle Caretta caretta, p. 5. Green sea turtles nesting in Florida travelled hundreds of kilometres to their resident foraging areas. B.A. Schroeder, et. al., (1994), Post-Nesting Movements of Florida Green Turtles: Preliminary Results from Satellite Telemetry, Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Symposium of Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation, p. 90. Hawaiian green sea turtles were long-range migrant breeders that nested primarily at French Frigate Shoals, the approximate midpoint of the Hawaiian Archipelago, which extended 2450 linear kilometres. G.H. Balazs, et. al. Preliminary Assessment of Habitat Utilization by Hawaiian Green Turtles in the Resident Foraging Pastures (NOAA Technical Memorandum 1987). Green turtles nesting at Ascension Island spent most of their adult lives at foraging grounds off the coast of Brazil and migrated more than 2,000 km to Ascension to nest. J.A. Mortimer and K.M. Portier, (1989), Reproductive Homing and Internesting Behavior of the Green Turtle (Chelonia Mydas) at Ascension Island, South Atlantic Ocean.

⁷⁹ National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, (1990), Decline of the Sea Turtles: Causes and Prevention, p. 26.

⁸⁰ In responding to similar arguments contained in Annex JJ of the United States (see below Section III.D), Malaysia noted that a careful examination of Bowen (1995), cited by the United States to show that "DNA analysis demonstrated that some leatherback sea turtles in American Samoa are from Malaysian or Indonesian stock" revealed that this study did not mention DNA studies on leatherback turtles. Bowen had conducted studies on loggerheads, hawksbills and green turtles. Further, Dutton et al. (1997) made no mention of green turtles from the US Pacific Island territories reaching the South China Sea. Dutton et al. (1997) stated in fact that "[a]nalysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) for green turtles indicates that eastern, western and central Pacific nesting populations are genetically distinct and suggests these regional nesting assemblages represent independent demographic units for management purposes". Dutton et al. (1997) also found that green turtles caught in the Hawaiian longline fishery were from Hawaiian and eastern Pacific rookeries, and none from any of the western Pacific rookeries.

⁸¹ H.C. Liew, E.H. Chan, F. Papi and P. Lusch, (1995), Long distance migration of green turtles from Redang Island, Malaysia: The need for regional cooperation in sea turtle conservation, in Proceedings of the International Congress of Chelonian Conservation. 6-10 July 1995, Confaron, France, pp. 73-75.

⁸² E.H. Chan and H.C. Liew, (1996), A management plan for the green and hawksbill turtle populations of the Sabah Turtle Islands: A report to Sabah parks, SEATRU (Sea Turtle Research Unit), Universiti Kolej, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Terengganu.

⁸³ Malaysia referred to G.H. Balazs, (1994), Homeward Bound: Satellite Tracking of Hawaiian Green Turtles from Nesting Beaches to Foraging Pastures, NOAA Technical Memorandum, NMFS-S-SEFSC-341, pp. 205-208 (Green turtles nesting on East Island of the French Frigate Shoals migrated to foraging areas within the 2,400 km span of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The turtles which were tracked by satellite migrated over distances ranging from 830 to 1260 km. The feeding and nesting grounds as well as migratory pathways were confined within the Hawaiian Archipelago); H.C. Liew, E.H. Chan, P. Luschi and F. Papi, (1995), Satellite Tracking Data on Malaysian Green Turtle Migration, 9(6), pp. 239-246 (Satellite tracking had demonstrated that green turtles nesting on Redang Island, off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, migrated to feeding grounds bordering the South China Sea); A. Meylan, (1995), Sea Turtle Migration - Evidence from Tag Return, Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles, K.A. Bjorndal ed., pp. 91-100 (This study provided numerous examples of range of sea turtle migrations using tag returns. The migrations were restricted to specific regions); B.W. Bowen, (1995), Tracking Marine Turtles with Genetic Markers, BioScience, Vol. 45, No. 8, pp. 528-534 (Studies using genetic markers had shown that juvenile loggerhead turtles which fed in the coastal water of Baja California were derived from nesting grounds in Japan and western Australia. The movements of these turtles were trans-Pacific, but were confined to the Pacific Ocean).

⁸⁴ Environment Newsletter, The Quarterly Newsletter of the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SREP), No. 40, January/March 1995.

⁸⁵ Pakistan explained that the source cited by the United States to support its assertion that "[g]reen sea turtles nesting in Florida travelled hundreds of kilometres to their resident foraging areas" noted only that transmitters had been attached to three green turtles and data collected had shown that one of these turtles had remained "just off-shore the lower Florida Keys" and another had been reported "approximately 40 km west of Key West." The conclusion of the study was that "Florida green turtles make use of the extensive seagrass meadows and coral reefs in the Florida Keys as resident foraging habitats." See B.A. Schroeder et. al., (1994), Post Nesting Movements of Florida Green Turtles: Preliminary Results from Satellite Telemetry, Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Symposium of Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation, p. 90.

⁸⁶ B.A. Schroeder, et. al., (1994), Post-Nesting Movements of Florida Green Turtles: Preliminary Results from Satellite Telemetry, Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Symposium of Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation, p. 90.

⁸⁷ National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences (US), (1990), Decline of the Sea Turtles: Causes and Prevention, p. 23.

⁸⁸ Pakistan referred to the study by the National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, (1990), Decline of the Sea Turtles: Causes and Prevention, which indicated that: Kemp's Ridley was found "as far north as Long Island and Vineyard Sound, Massachusetts", p. 23; in the Western Hemisphere, the loggerhead was found as far North as Newfoundland, p. 29; "The leatherback is frequently encountered outside the tropics, even in latitudes approaching polar waters. For example, it is often reported in the waters of New England and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, possibly as far north as Baffin Island", p. 39.

⁸⁹ The same study (pp. 53 and 83) noted that brown shrimp were found along the north Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Martha's Vineyard to the Yucatan coast and white shrimp ranged along the Atlantic coast from Fire Island, New York to Saint-Lucie Inlet, Florida.

⁹⁰ National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences (US), (1990), Decline of the Sea Turtle: Causes and Prevention.

⁹¹ Thailand referred to L. Seachrist, (1994), Sea Turtles Master Migration with Magnetic Memories, Science No. 264, pp. 661-62, noting that loggerheads born on beaches along the coasts of North and South America migrated to the Sargosso Sea in the middle of the North Atlantic and then returned to their birth places; B.W. Bowen and J.C. Avise, (1994), Tracking Turtles Through Time, Natural History, Vol. 103, No. 12, pp. 36-42, showing that South American green turtles migrated from the South American Coast to Ascension Island and then returned to South America and concluding that "green turtles should not be managed as if they were a single, homogeneous population".

⁹² See National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, (1990), Decline of the Sea Turtles: Causes and Prevention, p. 41. Thailand noted that before the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the US executive branch noted that five species were the subject of Section 609(a) and (b): the loggerhead, the leatherback, the green, the hawksbill, and the Kemp's ridley.

⁹³ B. Phasuk, (1992), Biology, Culture, Technique and Conservation of Sea Turtle in Thailand.

⁹⁴ IUCN (World Conservatin Union), (1995), A Marine Turtle Conservation Strategy and Action Plane for the Western Indian Ocean, p. 14, and IUCN (World Conservation Union), (1997), A Marine Turtle Conservation Strategy and Action Plan for the Northern Indian Ocean, p. 11.

⁹⁵ IUCN (World Conservation Union), (1995), A Global Strategy for the Conservation of Marine Turtles.

⁹⁶ B. W. Bowen and J. C. Avise, (1994), Tracking Turtles Through Time, Natural History, Vol. 103, No. 12, p. 36.

⁹⁷ IUCN (World Conservation Union), (1995), A Global Strategy for the Conservation of Marine Turtles, p. 1.

⁹⁸ National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, (1990), Decline of the Sea Turtles: Causes and Prevention, p. 26.

⁹⁹ S.A. Eckert, et. al., (1996), Estimation of the Nesting Population Size of the Leatherback Sea Turtle Demochelys coriacea in the Mexican Pacific.

¹⁰⁰ B. Groombridge and R. Luxmoore, (1989), The Green Turtle and Hawksbill (Reptilia cheloniidae): World Status, Exploitation and Trade.

¹⁰¹ C.J. Limpus, (1995), Global Overview of the Status of Marine Turtles: A 1995 Viewpoint, in Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles, K.A. Bjorndal ed., pp. 605-610.

¹⁰² Ibid.

¹⁰³ C.S. Kar and S. Bhaskar, (1995), Status of Sea Turtles in the Eastern Indian Ocean, in Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles, K.A. Bjorndal ed., p. 365. The United States noted that some other examples of precipitous declines of sea turtles populations included a 50-80 per cent decline in nesting loggerhead females at eastern Australian rookeries since the mid-1970s and a significant decline in green turtle populations in Indonesia and French Polynesia. C. Limpus and D. Reimer, (1994), The Loggerhead Sea Turtle, Caretta caretta, in Queensland: A Population in Decline, in Proceedings of the Australian Marine Turtle Conservation Workshop, Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage and Australian Nature Conservation Agency, R. James ed., pp. 39-60; C.J. Limpus, (1995), Global Overview of the Status of Marine Turtles: A 1995 Viewpoint, in Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles, K.A. Bjorndal ed., pp. 605-609.

¹⁰⁴ Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife to the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region, 24 March 1983, TIAS No. 11085.

¹⁰⁵ Public Law 93-205, 16 U.S.C. 1531 et. seq.

¹⁰⁶ National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, (1990), Decline of the Sea Turtles: Causes and Prevention, Washington D.C., pp. 76 and 145.

¹⁰⁷ IUCN (World Conservation Union) Marine Turtle Specialist Group, (1995), A Global Strategy for the Conservation of Marine Turtles, p. 8.

¹⁰⁸ H.O. Hillestad et. al., (1982), Worldwide Incidental Capture of Sea Turtles, in Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles, K.A. Bjorndal, pp. 489-495. The United States noted that the incidental take of sea turtles by shrimp trawl vessels had been the largest source of mortality for the Kemp's ridley, the most critically endangered of all sea turtles, and had contributed to the decline and impeded the recovery of the species. National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, (1990), Decline of the Sea Turtles: Causes and Prevention, p. 76.

¹⁰⁹ B.C. Choudhury, (1997), Country Report: India - Sea Turtle Status, Conservation and Management in India, p. 2.

¹¹⁰ P. Mohanty-Hejmadi, (1994), Biology of the Olive Ridleys of Gahirmatha, Orissa, India, in Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Symposium of Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation, p. 90.

¹¹¹ C. Limpus and D. Reimer, (1994), The Loggerhead Sea Turtle, Caretta caretta, in Queensland: A Population in Decline, in Proceedings of the Australian Marine Turtle Conservation Workshop, Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage and Australian Nature Conservation Agency, R. James ed., pp. 39-60.

¹¹² B. Lazar and N. Tvrtkovia, (1997), Results of Marine Turtles Research and Conservation Program in Croatia, paper presented at the Seventeenth Annual Symposium of Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation.

¹¹³ D.T. Crouse et. al., (1987), A Stage-based Population Model for Loggerhead Sea Turtles and Implications for Conservation, Ecology, Vol. 68, pp. 1412-1423.