RI 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