Conservation of Pacific Sea Turtles

Chapter 18. Performance and Technology Standards in International Environmental Agreements: Potential Lessons for Sea Turtle Conservation and Recovery

350 Performance and technology standards, key features of many international environmental agreements (IEAs) for common and public resources, are policy tools that can contribute to the conservation of Pacific sea turtle populations. Many such standards have been applied in other IEAs, including the conservation of dolphins in the eastern Pacific Ocean, polar bears in the Arctic, fur seals in the North Pacific, and seals in the Antarctic . Relevant standards have also been adopted as measures to address ozone depletion in the atmosphere, global warming from emissions of greenhouse gases, acid rain pollution from emissions of sulfur and nitrous dioxides, and ocean pollution from ships. This chapter reviews performance and technology standards in IEAs with an eye on lessons that are applicable to the conservation of sea turtles. Policies taken to conserve sea turtle populations can be formal international multilateral or bilateral agreements (such as treaties, memoranda of understanding), informal coordination of policies among nations, or simply unilaterally taken domestic actions. Nonetheless, the focus in this chapter is upon formal or informal bilateral or multilateral international efforts to conserve populations of sea turtles given the nature of the transboundary resource and associated transboundary externality due to sea turtle migrations and related jurisdictional issues. CHAPTER 18 Performance and Technology Standards in International Environmental Agreements Potential Lessons for Sea Turtle Conservation and Recovery Dale SquireS, MaHfuzuDDin aHMeD, anD Bee Hong yeo Performance and Technology Standards | 351 Performance Standards Performance standards for sea turtles are quantitative limits on incidental takes and/or mortality of sea turtles incidentally taken during harvests of fish or shrimp, such as quotas, extending to outright bans on any mortality . Performance standards could include a limit on the number of sea turtles of a given species that die through fishery interactions in a given year. Examples of performance standards in IEAs include limits on emissions of ozone-depleting substances, such as CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and HFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons), in the Montreal Protocol and transferable property rights for emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, in the Kyoto Protocol. In the context of sea turtle conservation, performance standards can be set to allow sustainable takes, to restore populations, or to preserve a safe minimum standard or a minimum viable population level. Performance standards can be set across different areas and time periods, especially in ecologically sensitive areas and seasons, such as time-area closures off nesting beaches when females return to lay their eggs or in periods of intense concentration of sea turtles in foraging areas or migration routes. Performance standards may be set unilaterally by a single nation, such as the application of the Endangered Species Act in the United States to Pacific leatherbacks and loggerheads, or multilaterally by multiple nations through an IEA. SeaturtleIEAsemployorallowforperformancestandards.Forexample, the Inter-American Convention for the Conservation and Protection of Sea Turtles prohibits the intentional capture or killing of sea turtles (with exceptions of subsistence takes under specific conditions) (Gibbons-Fly 2001). The Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation and Management of Marine Turtles and their Habitats of the Indian Ocean and SouthEast Asia’s (IOSEA MoU) Conservation and Management Plan includes a provision to “Mitigate Threats and Bycatch,” by reducing “the incidental capture and mortality of marine turtles in the course of fishing activities to ensure that any incidental take is sustainable through regulation of fisheries and through development and implementation of measures such as turtle excluder devices (TEDs) and seasonal or spatial closure of waters.” (The TED is a grid trapdoor installed inside a trawling net that allows shrimp to pass to the back of the net, while directing sea turtles out of the net.) The Conservation and Management Plan of the IOSEA MoU similarly lists a program to “reduce to the greatest extent practicable the incidental capture and mortality of marine turtles in the course of fishing activities.” 352 | Dale SquireS, MaHfuzuDDin aHMeD, anD Bee Hong yeo A performance standard as a quantitative target raises an issue when there is uncertainty about the costs of mitigation (Weitzman 1974). If a quantitative limit were fixed, marginal costs of abatement would be uncertain . An alternative can be a form of tax, which controls marginal costs directly, or a hybrid policy combining quotas or transferable property rights with a tax (Roberts and Spence 1976). Performance Standards Extended to Property or Use Rights Performance standards can be extended to form property or use rights over mortality of animals taken in fisheries. Dolphin mortality limits...