Conservation of Pacific Sea Turtles

Chapter 21. Trade and the Environment Implications for Sea Turtle Conservation and Management

415 Production from commercial fisheries plays an increasingly large part in sustainable development and remains an underpinning of the economies of many coastal developing countries, as well as an important component of international trade. In light of this, the international community is challenged to reconcile the economic and food-security value of such production in the context of the impact commercial fishing is having on marine ecosystems. One particular result of the growth of commercial fishing is that the incidental bycatch of nontarget species, including sea turtles, has increased and become an issue of growing concern as populations of these endangered species continue to decline in some areas. This chapter provides background for the discussion of how the use of trade restrictive measures to deter fishing activities that threaten sea turtles might be considered for continuing efforts to increase protection and conservation of sea turtles in capture fisheries on a regional or global basis. Background The case to be used for this examination is the statutory program in effect in the United States that restricts the U.S. market to only shrimp that is produced in ways that are not harmful to sea turtles. The law on which this CHAPTER 21 Trade and the Environment Implications for Sea Turtle Conservation and Management DaviD f. Hogan 416 | DaviD f. Hogan program is based is Section 609 of Public Law 101-162 (Section 609). This law was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1989 and became effective in 1990. At that time, the commercial capture fisheries section of the U.S. shrimp industry was faced with new regulations to protect sea turtles in the course of trawl fishing for shrimp. The primary requirement was the use of turtle excluder devices (TEDs), a device that could allow 97% of sea turtles incidentally caught in shrimp trawl nets to escape. These measures, although a very positive solution because they kept the fisheries open in the face of the requirements of the U.S. Endangered Species Act to mitigate or eliminate human activity that negatively affects endangered species , were nevertheless extremely unpopular with the industry. TEDs were viewed negatively due to misperceptions that they dramatically lowered catch rates by losing shrimp from the escape openings and in addition were seen as costly and difficult to handle. The U.S. market has consistently maintained the capacity for more shrimp consumption than the U.S. industry can supply, and the remaining demand is met with imports of wild-caught and aquaculture products from foreign countries. Section 609 was passed to ensure that shrimp imported into the U.S. were produced under the same conditions as the shrimp produced by the domestic industry. The provisions of Section 609 are relatively straightforward. Section 609 prohibits importation of shrimp and products of shrimp harvested in a manner that may adversely affect sea turtle species. This import prohibition does not apply in cases where the Department of State certifies annually to Congress, not later than 1 May, that the government of the harvesting nation has taken certain specific measures to reduce the incidental taking of sea turtles in its shrimp trawl fisheries—or that the fishing environment of the harvesting nation does not pose a threat to sea turtle species . The certifications are made annually to the Congress by the Department of State, as delegated by the president. For countries with commercial shrimp trawl fishing in tropical or subtropical waters where there is a likelihood of interactions with sea turtles, Section 609 means that those countries that wish to be certified must adopt a program that is comparable in effectiveness to the program in place in the United States. This standard effectively requires the adoption of a TEDs program, or an alternate regime that is comparable in effectiveness to a TEDs program (though no country has yet developed a successful alternative to TEDs). The program must be regulatory in nature, in that it must be backed by laws or regulations with the force of law, and those laws/regulations must be credibly enforced. Trade and the Environment | 417 Upon the enactment of Section 609, the State Department issued guidelines for the implementation of Section 609 that initially provided a three-year phase-in for the countries that were deemed to be subject to Section 609 (countries in the Caribbean and Atlantic region whose sea turtle populations were shared with the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic shrimp trawl fisheries...