Summary

Endangered and threatened sea turtles could benefit from a network of protected and linked swimways that would provide safe passage through migratory, nesting, developmental and foraging habitat around the world. International conservation groups are calling for 20% of the world's oceans to be protected in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to preserve fisheries and marine biodiversity (National Research Council, 1998). Creating "international parks" that are free from human pressures—industrial fishing in particular—could help provide global protection for sea turtles. Such parks or reserves would benefit other marine life by offering undisturbed areas that will help maintain our wild oceans.
Turtle Excluder Devices have not proven to be a complete solution for protecting endangered sea turtles from shrimp fishing. Even after TEDs were implemented in the U. S., sea turtle mortality continues during shrimp fishing. Many shrimp fleets of the world still do not use TEDs. And U. S. TEDs laws are being eroded by global trade treaties. Longline fishing is clearly another threat to sea turtle populations. Other types of commercial fishing activities also cause sea turtle mortality.
Most of our important sea turtle nesting beaches now possess a high level of protection, and monitoring and trade in sea turtle products is illegal. Yet, sea turtles still remain vulnerable to extinction.
New approaches that go beyond beach protection and fishing regulations are needed to protect sea turtles in their ocean habitat and assure their survival for the next thousand years and more. A global network of protected swimways closed to commercial fishing established through linked Marine Protected Areas could achieve this while providing benefits to fisheries, other marine life, coastal communities and future generations.

What Is A Marine Protected Area?

A Marine Protected Area is defined by the IUCN as "any area of intertidal or subtidal terrain together with overlying waters and associated flora and fauna, and historical and cultural features that have been reserved by law or other effective means to protect all or part of the enclosed environment."
The IUCN defines six different categories of MPAs, depending on level of protection (IUCN, 1994). Currently, no standard MPA definition exists. Hundreds of MPAs have been established in many countries around the world using a variety of terms such as marine reserve, marine sanctuary, and ecological reserve (MPA News, 2000). Some allow no human activity at all, while others restrict fishing only, and still others permit all activities except a very specific activity like oil exploration or dumping.
For example, the U. S. National Marine Sanctuary Program has established 13 marine sanctuaries. However, these sanctuaries provide a low-level of protection for marine life because all activities including commercial fishing are allowed. Only oil exploration is prohibited.
In contrast, the 16 marine reserves established in New Zealand during the past 35 years are all no-take zones (Ballantine, 1999). Swimming, boating and diving are allowed, but no fishing or other extractive activity.
Marine protected areas have been created in many ways by many different agencies.
In Florida, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Council approved a no-take marine reserve to protect gag grouper, a long-lived sedentary fin-fish species. A large no-take marine reserve is currently being proposed for the Dry Tortugas in the Florida Keys to protect a vibrant zone of marine habitat.
A de-facto marine reserve closed to longline fishing was established by court-order in a million square miles of ocean north of Hawaii due to illegal killing of endangered leatherback sea turtles by that fishery.

Calls to Protect Our Oceans

The concept of creating protected swimways for sea turtles in important migratory, foraging, developmental and nesting habitat arose in response to increasing calls from marine scientists to protect our wild oceans in marine protected areas. Today, less than one-half of one percent of the 4.4 million square miles of submerged lands under U. S. jurisdiction is protected. The IUCN and the U. S. National Research Council are calling for 20 percent of the world's oceans to be set aside in marine protected areas by the year 2020 due to threats to marine biodiversity overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution, alien species and global atmospheric change (National Research Council, 1998).
The Marine Conservation Biology Institute and The Cousteau Society released a proposal in February 2000 pressing the Clinton Administration to set up a network of linked marine protected areas in the U. S. (Marine Conservation Biology Institute, 2000). The proposal asked for 2 percent of U. S. waters to be protected by 2005 and for 20 percent of each ecosystem type to be represented. Unlike Canada with its Ocean Protection Act, the U. S. currently has no policy to establish a network of marine protected areas.
To date, most efforts to create marine protected areas have been fishery focused on a case-by-case basis and viewed primarily as a tool to protect diminished fish stocks. To benefit sea turtles, the discussion must be enlarged to include endangered species and all marine biodiversity.

Why Sea Turtles Need Protected Swimways

Use of Turtle Excluder Devices in shrimp nets have not stopped large numbers of sea turtles from washing up dead and dying along coastline when shrimping is underway. Compliance with and enforcement of TEDs laws has been inconsistent.
Repeated capture and escape of sea turtles through TEDs may be causing sea turtle mortality.  This points to the conclusion that TEDs have not turned out to be the total solution for allowing shrimp fishing to occur without negatively affecting sea turtles.
The commercial longline fishery is also taking a toll on sea turtle populations, primarily the endangered Pacific leatherback. The coastal drift gillnet fishery in California is exceeding its allowable take of loggerheads. Other fisheries certainly take a toll on sea turtles as well.
For these reasons, sea turtle protection in fisheries must be enhanced by creating marine protected areas that are closed to commercial fishing. Strategically placed MPAs closed to commercial fishing would provide immediate relief from incidental sea turtle capture and mortality.

Where to start?

Because the Kemp's ridley is the most endangered sea turtle in the world, establishing a Kemp's Ridley Marine Reserve along the South Texas coast could be the place to start.
At the species' primary nesting beach in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, a three-tiered conservation strategy has achieved results in the form of slow recovery of a once abundant population. The strategy includes beach protection, TEDs and a marine reserve that is off limits to shrimp fishing during the sea turtle nesting and mating season, March to August.
The Kemp's ridley in the U. S. has beach protection and TEDs, but no marine reserve. As a result, more adult Kemp's ridleys die along the South Texas coast than anywhere in the world (Shaver, 1999). This is also the only regular nesting site for the Kemp's ridley in the United States.
The South Texas coast also provides important developmental habitat for juvenile green sea turtles. Loggerheads and hawksbills also occasionally nest here and leatherbacks are found stranded on these beaches every year.
Other key areas in the U. S. to create protected swimways off limits to shrimp fishing could include sections of the coast of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina where sea turtles regularly nest and forage. Existing marine reserves and sanctuaries could provide natural starting points for establishing sea turtle swimways and increasing fishing restrictions. Sea turtle biologists studying sea turtles in the U. S. and overseas are best equipped to determine where other sea turtle swimways should be established.

Benefits of Sea Turtle Swimways

Beyond protecting sea turtles in their ocean home, protected swimways could also provide protection for marine mammals, fin-fish species, other marine life, and the sea floor. Benefits could extend to coastal communities in the form of enhanced fisheries and eco-tourism, to scientists for research and for future generations of people.
STRP encourages the sea turtle community to begin identifying locations for sea turtle swimways and become active in coalitions working to create marine protected areas. STRP is working to create a internet-basedcommunications network for sea turtle conservationists striving to create marine reserves or swimways for sea turtles.

Literature cited:

Ballantine, Bill, Marine Reserves in New Zealand, The Development of the Concept and the Principles, 1999, University of Auckland, Leigh Marine Laboratory

Fujita, Rodney M., Willingham, Virginia, Freitas, Julene U.S. West Coast Marine Reserves Appear to Enhance Fish Abundance and Reproduction, , Environmental Defense Fund, October 1998

IUCN, 1994, Guidelines for Protected Area Management Categories

Marine Conservation Biology Institute and the Cousteau Society, February 16, 2000. A Call for Presidential Action: Safeguarding America's Seas: Establishing a National System of Marine Protected Areas, http://www.mcbi.org.

MPA News, January 2000, MPA Nomenclature: The Thicket of Terms and Definitions Continues to Grow

National Marine Fisheries Service, 1999. Epperly, Sherry and Wendy G. Teas, Evaluation of TED Opening Dimensions Relative to Size of Turtles Stranding in the Western North Atlantic

National Research Council, 1998, Sustaining Marine Fisheries

Shaver, D. J. 1999 Padre Island National Seashore Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle Project and Texas Sea Turtle Strandings 1998 Report. Department of the Interior, U. S. Geological Survey,