Juvenile hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) NOAA photo library
Marine Turtle Conservation: a diagnostic tool for success

Creating the Framework

We collected information about different approaches being taken around the world to conserve and protect marine turtles and other natural resources, especially in developing countries. The seven factors included in the Diagnostic Tool for Success incorporate the important aspects being addressed in conservation efforts globally, both on the small community level scale, as well as large international cooperative scale efforts, and all that run the gamut in between. We would like to highlight a few of the existing programs and evaluations on marine turtle conservation, this in no way constitutes as a full review, and further work to accomplish a more thorough meta-analysis would be extremely valuable. That being said, here are a few of resources we referenced and were brought to our attention:First, marine turtle conservation management information provided by the IUCN/SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group is invaluable. The 1999 “Research and Management Techniques for the Conservation of Sea Turtles” which followed the 1995 report, “A Global Strategy for the Conservation of Marine Turtles” provide essential information for all marine turtle conservation program managers. Much guidance in creating the “Framework for Success” was received from this publication. Of particular significance was John G. Fraizer’s “Community-Based Conservation” and Karen L. Eckert’s “Designing a Conservation Program” (Eckert 1999; Bjorndal 1995). The 1995 report identified and examined nine parallel strategies which can be used in various combination by local projects to best address needs and goals of specific programs.

Research and Monitoring Integrated Management for Sustainable Marine Turtle Populations
Building Capacity for Conservation, Research, and Management
Public Awareness, Information, and Education
Community Participation in Conservation
 Regional and International Cooperation
Evaluation of the Status of Marine Turtles
Funding for Marine Turtle Conservation
Operation of the Marine Turtle Specialist Group

Three consistent themes within these strategies, as reported by the Marine Turtle Specialist Group, “were integration of marine turtle conservation and management, the need to involve local people who utilize turtles in their conservation, and the restoration/maintenance of the roles of marine turtles in their ecosystems” and these themes are also embedded in the heart of the presentedDiagnostic Tool.In his contributing article to the 1999 report, specifically on community based conservation (CBC), Fraizer examines specific factors such as program integration, considerations of time, community and participation, contemporary challenges, developing alternatives, challenge of autonomy, training and learning, and setting priorities. Fraizer summarizes:

Despite the need to develop case-by-case actions for CBC, several generalities can serve as specific steps:

• define the problem (bearing in mind the social and political ramifications);
• construct realistic goals, together with means of objective evaluation for both short
• and long term;
• identify local stake holders as well as other key players; evaluate attitudes, and appraise agendas (stated and hidden) of all players;
• appraise gains and losses of different parties (both measurable and unmeasurable but perceived);
• develop realistic strategies and alternatives working through consensus, keeping
• in mind the challenges of integration, time constraints, etc.;
• develop forms of communication and symbols that are relevant and effective, including capacity building;
• keep the process open and participatory;
• avoid romanticism and paternalism.

These more prescriptive suggestions were also fundamental considerations in the creation of the Diagnostic Tool, as were findings and recommendations from other international collaborations.As highlighted in the recent SWOT (State of the World’s Sea Turtles) report, the Caribbean region has many years of experience in implementing and adapting for the increasingly successful conservation of marine turtles, especially with the leadership from network organizations such as

WIDECAST:The Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) is an international scientific network operating in more than 30 Caribbean States and territories. WIDECAST embraces the largest network of sea turtle research and conservation projects in the world and provides a unique framework for collaboration that emphasizes science-based tools in the management and conservation of sea turtles, successfully integrating once isolated efforts into an effective, collective response to the challenge of chronically depleted populations. Emphasizing information exchange and training, the network continues to promote strong linkages between science, policy, and public participation in the design and implementation of conservation actions. (http://www.seaturtlestatus.org/Main/Resources/AdditionalResources.aspx - accessed Sept 1, 2008)

One specific program model is being replicated on a larger scale throughout the Caribbean as a partnership between WIDECAST, EarthWatch, and Nature Seekers, and focuses on “training communities in sea turtle conservation.” Through expert-lead workshops, the responsibility and experience is passed to on-site community members who take ownership of the conservation efforts. Training sessions provide information on marine turtle biology as well as community conservation strategies like monitoring and ecotourism. (http://www.earthwatch.org/aboutus/research/scientistopps/seaconservation  - accessed Sept 1, 2008)

This program reflects many of the above mentioned practices, as well as those from editors Eckert and Grobois’s 1999 Proceedings of the Regional Meeting on Marine Turtle Conservation in the Wider Caribbean Region, which provides further detail and insight through the 12 broad recommendations and detailed supporting information.

1. Identify, strengthen, promote, develop and maintain mechanisms for enhancing dialogue, collaboration, information-sharing, and technology exchange among diverse agencies, organizations, researchers and other stakeholders in the WCR;
2. Promote greater community participation in the identification of management priorities and actions, as well as in the development, implementation and evaluation of activities directed at the conservation of marine turtles and their habitats;
3. Promote scientific research, assessment and monitoring of marine turtles and their habitats, and standardize methods of data collection and analysis;
4. Develop and implement national and regional management plans based on the best available scientific information, and designed to restore and stabilize marine turtle populations and their habitats to levels that provide broad social, cultural, economic
and environmental benefits to the peoples of the WCR;
5. Promote the harmonization of national policies and legislation concerning the conservation of marine turtles and their habitats throughout the WCR, and support efforts to improve the implementation of relevant national, regional and global commitments;
6. Identify, strengthen, develop and maintain mechanisms for providing the resources required to design and implement these activities, including human, financial, logistic, and political resources;
7. Based on the recommendations of the Working Group, “Determining Population Distribution and Status”: (detailed objectives omitted here)
8. Based on the recommendations of the Working Group, “Monitoring Population Trends”: (detailed objectives omitted here)
9. Based on the recommendations of the Working Group, “Promoting Public Awareness and Participation”: (detailed objectives omitted here)
10. Based on the recommendations of the Working Group, “Reducing Threats on Foraging Grounds and Inter-nesting Habitats”: (detailed objectives omitted here)
11. Based on the recommendations of the Working Group, “Reducing Threats at Nesting Beaches”: (detailed objectives omitted here)
12. Based on the recommendations of the Working Group, “Strengthening the Regulatory Framework”: (detailed objectives omitted here)

This report, along with similar resources provide essential prescriptive details for conservation efforts. Recently, more work has been done with respect to customary marine tenure of coastal reefs and fishing areas by Joshua Cinner, Shankar Aswani and others, with primary focus on small island communities of the Indo-Pacific. While not specifically focused on marine turtle conservation, the overlap of essential challenges and strategies made these findings extremely influential to the factors of the Diagnostic Tool.

Cinner and Aswani (2007) suggest that “hybridizing customary management with Western systems of management (e.g. MPAs) during the design, implementation, and monitoring phases of a conservation program can help to implement resource management and conservation in a culturally sensitive fashion to increase compliance and subsequent conservation effects.” This article also identifies other strategies, not marine based, but with important findings and recommendations just the same:

There have also been considerable efforts to investigate the integration of customary and contemporary management in terrestrial ecosystems (e.g., Stevens, 1997; Horowitz, 1998; Mgumia and Oba, 2003; Moller et al., 2004; Bodin et al., 2006). Lessons from these terrestrial systems indicate that it is critical for hybrid systems to: (1) formally recognize customary practices through a legal mechanism; (2) reinforce local authorities; (3) provide a sense of ownership of the resource (which may include the ability to exclude outsiders); (4) provide direct economic benefits; (5) tailor strategies to the specific socioeconomic, cultural, and historical context of an area; and (6) incorporate local understandings of human-environment interactions (Horowitz, 1998; Colding and Folke, 2000b; Armitage, 2003; Colding et al., 2003; Bhagwat and Rutte, 2006). (Cinner and Aswani, 2007)
Six key principles are identified in Cinner and Aswani’s “hybrid” model and were greatly relied upon in the creation of this Diagnostic Tool, and direct contact with Cinner was essential to the creation of this resource. Six components:

• Strategies should reflect local socioeconomic and cultural conditions
• Strategies should match varying scales of social and ecological processes
• Processes should harness both scientific and local knowledge systems
• Legal capacity that is flexible and fast
• Recognize limitations to what it can achieve
• Embrace utilitarian nature of customary management

Cinner’s work continues to push the envelope in exploring the significance of social aspects on natural resource conservation and he is just one of many researchers contributing to this essential discipline.  Lisa Campbell is another who’s work involving local communities was influential to creating this Diagnostic Tool.
In addition to social aspects, Campbell explored economic principles and incentives as well as political cultures as she “employs a political ecology approach to understanding sea turtle conservation, how it is articulated and executed at different sociopolitical and geographic scales, and the consequences for local rights of access to resources.” (Campbell, 2008).  Similarly, the ideas presented in the Diagnostic Tool were also built on the “incentive-based monitoring program” of Paul Ferraro and Heidi Gjertsen, because while any conservation effort operates with good intentions, it is only viable if it makes sense economically.  Therefore, in devising our Diagnostic Toolkit, we approach conservation from a least-cost and economic efficient school of thought.

Ferraro and Gjertsen describe the reality for many citizens of developing countries and what that means for marine turtle populations. Oftentimes, the greatest income is achieved by local communities through the poaching of turtles and the collecting eggs. Therefore, these communities must be presented with incentives to conserve these resources rather than consume them. The benefit of alternative sources of income, whatever they may be, (monitoring and collecting data on nests, collecting eggs to be bought by rookeries, eco tourism, etc) must be great enough for the community members to forgo the opportunity costs of undesirable activities.

In many, if not most cases, the least cost approach to an incentive based program is to alter beach activities (e.g. monitoring vs. harvesting). These can include both direct and indirect payments. Direct payments may consist of the conservation organization “buying” the eggs from collectors and raising them outside the natural nest in hatcheries. This is not a simple task. It is important to understand the social and cultural conditions of the local community, for sometimes this may create unforeseen conflicts, such as unpleasant rivalry between egg collectors. It also may introduce problems pertaining to the safe transfer of eggs to rookeries, as well as additional costs of maintaining the rookeries (Ferarro 2007).

Alternatively, indirect payments can take the form of hiring locals as beach monitors and regulation enforcers. Depending on the size of the constituency reliant on turtle resources for livelihood, it might be necessary, but always advisable, to establish an alternative industry. It might be that the number of people reliant on undesirable use of turtles and eggs is too great to all be employed by the conservation organization. In many cases the introduction of another industry can only have positive effects on the well being of community. Often, tourism and eco-tourism provide extra job opportunities and additional revenue for the country’s inhabitants. As evidence has shown, tourism can be just as great a negative to marine turtles and natural resources as it can be a positive, so responsible execution of any ecotourism is essential.

In a place where tourism does not represent a significant portion of the gross domestic product or is not a desired source of revenue, other natural resources might be utilized, ideally in a sustainable manner. One example of a creative conservation program is Seacology, which among many regional projects, is helping to relieve pressure on the coral reefs and mangrove forests and the inhabitants which include sea turtles, of the Philippines by investing in the fledgling cashew industry as well as the enforcement and monitoring of a newly designated Marine Protected Area. (Seacology online).
Whatever approach taken to protect marine turtles, it is important to keep in mind the opportunity costs of abstaining from objectionable uses of turtle resources, and establish incentives for community members to be compliant.  Gjertsen (2008) discusses opportunity costs, and other challenges, specifically coastal fisheries and sources of income which are all intertwined and impact success of marine turtle conservation efforts:

A number of issues arise when addressing bycatch and direct takes of sea turtles in coastal fisheries of low and medium-income countries. The biodiversity conservation issue cannot be neatly separated from the management of these fisheries and from poverty, economic development, coastal zone management, and sometimes even ethnicity. The difficulty is compounded because the benefits of biodiversity conservation are non-market public goods and enjoyed not by those bearing the costs but by relatively wealthy populations throughout the globe. The low incomes and limited employment opportunities facing many coastal fishers, their families, and their communities limit their collective ability to absorb the costs of conservation, such as direct gear costs and indirect or opportunity costs through any incomes foregone from reduced catches following bycatch reduction measures and reduced direct takes for consumption (Alfaro-Shigueto in press, Yeo et al.2008).

While these examples are more specific than was required in the creating of the Diagnostic Tool, complete understanding of these and similar issues were critical and must be fully understood and addressed in order for a conservation program to be successful.

Lastly, a WWF report, complied by Sebastian Troëng and Carols Drews, “Money Talks: Economic Aspects of Marine Turtle Use and Conservation” was another extremely valuable resource in developing the Diagnostic Tool. The specific examples, data, figures and recommendations made in this report on the direct use (both consumptive and non-consumptive) in addition to passive use and costs associated with various approaches to marine turtle conservation provide insight to the importance of considering economic aspects and efficiency of management programs.

More Information

How to Use this Diagnostic Tool
How to Define Success
What is Least-Cost?
References
Links