Indonesia to protect top leatherback turtle site
Indonesia to protect top leatherback turtle site
RI to protect top leatherback turtle site
Indonesia pledged to help critically endangered leatherback turtles by creating a marine protected area for a Papua nesting beach that attracts a quarter of the remaining population in the Pacific.
Jamursba-Medi, on Papua's northern coast, is one of 10 sites identified by the World Wide Fund for Nature in the Pacific as key to the 3,000 or so female leatherbacks that remain in that ocean from an estimated 90,000 in the 1980s.
Matheus Halim, an Indonesian official with the Ministry of Forestry, called for immediate regional coordination and assistance to protect Western Pacific leatherbacks in Papua, 3,000 km (1,900 miles) east of the country's capital, Jakarta.
He said turtle conservation measures to date included halting Bali island's commercial trade in turtle products in 2000 and the seizure of more than 15 turtle boats in recent years.
WWF's Susan Lieberman welcomed Indonesia's move but called on others to take up the leatherback's plight, particularly on the issue of fishing boats catching turtles as bycatch along with target prey species.
"We must mobilize all countries and communities to protect leatherback habitats and use new fishing technologies to deal directly with the bycatch threat from fishing," she said at a launch on the margins of international talks intended to slow global species loss.
Leatherbacks are defined on the IUCN Red List of species as critically endangered, meaning they face an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future.
The slaughter of leatherbacks for meat, over-harvesting of their eggs and their drowning in fishing nets and on long-line hooks are the main threats to their survival.
Delegates from 188 countries and other parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity began their second week of meetings in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 16. Their negotiations range from how to create protected areas to rules on securing access to animal and plant species in return for a share of derived benefits.
With the greatest variety of life residing in developing countries, and the most advanced technologies and most money in the hands of developed ones, much of the talk is on how fair bargains can be struck between parties of unequal strength.
Biotechnology companies, for example, are keen to explore species-rich forests and other habitats for possible treatments or drugs precursors and to tap into indigenous knowledge for clues on how to use what's there.
At the same time, indigenous communities want to protect their heritage, often intimately tied to environments on lands of contested tenure, and benefit from any commercial exploitation that takes place. --Reuters
REUTERS
GetRTR 3.00 -- FEB 16, 2004 19:55:57