LATIN AMERICA:
Sea Turtles Face Deadly Beaches

Diego Cevallos* - Tierramérica


MEXICO CITY, (IPS) - Killing a sea turtle or stealing eggs from their beach nests can cost the perpetrator 140,000 dollars in fines and up to nine years in prison in Mexico, while in Cuba the fine is 200 dollars, and in Costa Rica the punishment is three years behind bars.

But these penalties and the legal protections established in most countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have failed to halt the turtle's journey to extinction. Of the eight sea turtle species existing in the world today, seven could disappear in the near future, warn experts.

On certain Latin American beaches, one can still find hundreds of shells of sea turtles that have been killed with machetes or clubs. Also found are the remains of turtles whose fins have been cut off for the skin or they are sliced open, for their eggs.



”Every year there are fewer turtles coming to the beach, and that is because of the massacres and because the government only promises to protect them but does not take effective action,” fisherman Manuel Abarca told Tierramérica.

Since 1999, he and a dozen friends have been protecting the sea turtles as they deposit their eggs in the sand on a beach in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero.

Seven sea turtle species head to more than 127 Mexican beaches to nest. Mexico has some of the strictest laws in this regard, and since 1990 has maintained a total ban on killing sea turtles or extracting their eggs.

Nevertheless, unofficial estimates indicate that more than 2,000 of these animals are massacred each year.

”I think it is many more than that, because on this beach alone there are easily more than 500 killed each year,” said Abarca.

Through the 1980s, most countries in the region permitted the capture of sea turtles and their eggs, but in the 1990s, when evidence emerged that their populations were on the decline, governments issued bans and enacted laws against those activities.

The turtles are used for their oils and meat, their skin is used to make shoes and handbags and handicrafts. People eat their eggs, which are high in protein, and because they are believed to have aphrodisiac properties.

Sea turtles have been around for more than 100 million years, despite their naturally high mortality rates and, more recently the attacks by humans.

Scientific studies show that just 0.02 to 0.2 percent of every 10,000 turtle offspring survive to adulthood.

In Costa Rica, one of the few nations of the Americas that still allows the controlled harvesting of sea turtle eggs, experts lament that these species continue in a state of emergency despite programmes, regulations and penalties intended to protect them..

The 'baula', or leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) is the species in greatest danger, as its population has dropped off in Mexico, Chile and Peru, biologist Isabel Naranjo, with Costa Rica's Sea Turtle Restoration Program, told Tierramérica.

”It is believed that if the rate of extermination continues, in 10 years the leatherback will disappear,” she said.

In 1992, there were 1,000 to 1,500 leatherback turtles reaching Costa Rica's beaches. By 2003 there were was just 52.

Cuba, which is demanding an end to the global ban on sales of the shell of the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata), is practically the only country in the world that reports an increase in the number of turtles laying eggs on its beaches.

On the island are stored 7.8 tons of sea turtle shells, collected between 1993 and 2002.

Although Cuba is fighting the ban on trade in sea turtle shells, it maintains strict regulations on human contact with the species. Violators of the conservation laws on the socialist-run island must pay fines of 15 to 200 dollars.

In addition to the leatherback and hawksbill, there are Kemp's ridley (Lepidochelys kempii), loggerhead (Caretta caretta), olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea), green (Chelonia mydas), black (Chelonia agassizii), and flatback (Natator depressus) sea turtles.

Venezuela also has laws stipulating fines and prison time for violations of the 1996 ban on capturing sea turtles. Nevertheless, Tierramérica heard complaints from environmentalist about the continued illegal trade in these species.

On Paraguaná Peninsula, in northwest Venezuela, facing the Dutch Antilles, at least 200 sea turtles are captured each year, charge the activists.

Clemente Balladares, a marine biologist with the governmental agency Profauna, acknowledged that the sea turtle species populations have declined in Venezuela.

”Effective application of the law is subject to the availability of resources, a budget, patrol boats and trained guards,” he told Tierramérica.

Throughout Latin America, governments claim they lack inspectors to protect sea turtles, but that they are doing what they can to prevent their extinction.

Environmental authorities are promoting ecotourism, education of fisherfolk, and public campaigns to reduce demand for turtle meat and eggs. These issues will be taken up by more than a thousand experts during the international symposium on sea turtle conservation to take place Feb. 22-29 in Costa Rica.

”Year after year we have reported the deaths of sea turtles to the government, but only now are they paying attention, because we called up the journalists and we made it a big deal,” said Abarca, a Mexican fisherman who serves as the honorary secretary of the turtle protection camp of San Valentín, on the Guerrero coast.

He told the press in early January that at least 500 sea turtle shells could be found in the vast area he and other fisherfolk have been monitoring the past five years.

On Jan. 19, when the police had begun to patrol a portion of the 13-km beach, Abarca conducted another count, and found 179 more shells.

”The massacre occurs every year, but many do it out of necessity, because here there is no work, no tourism, no agriculture,” he said.

”I want to tell everyone they should protect this animal, but also tell the government that it should not just make promises, but help people so they don't have to take the turtle eggs, and also send police to capture the criminals that make turtles into a business,” said the fisherman.

(* José Eduardo Mora/Costa Rica, Dalia Acosta/Cuba and Humberto Márquez/ Venezuela contributed to this report. Originally published Jan. 24 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)