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Marine Turtle Newsletter 108:, ©
Report of the XII Meeting of Latin American Sea Turtle Specialists (Savannah, Georgia, January 17-18, 2005)
Shaleyla Kelez1, Martin Laporta2, Gustave Lopez3 & Anabella Barrios4
1Grupo de Tortugas Marinas – Peru / APECO, Parque Jose de Acosta 187,Lima 17-Peru, (E-mail: skelez@yahoo.com)
2C.I.D., Proyecto Karumbé, Tortugas Marinas del Uruguay, J. Paullier 1198/101, Montevideo-Uruguay, (E-mail: negrolapo@adinet.com.uy)
3Projeto TAMAR-IBAMA, Caixa Postal 2219 Salvador, Bahia, CEP 40223-970 Brazil, (E-mail: guslopez@tamar.org.br)
4MILENYA, 14 av A 15-10 zona 6, Guatemala 1006, (E-mail: anabella_barrios@yahoo.com)
As every year, the Latin American Meeting was held two days before the Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. This year’s meeting, in Savannah, was titled “Incidental Captures of Sea Turtles in Latin America: Sharing Experiences”. The Organizing Committee chose this theme because currently a great amount of effort to conserve sea turtle populations needs to be brought to the sea where fisheries are one of the main threats that sea turtle have to face. Nowadays there is an enormous necessity for Latin American countries to work together with the fishermen in order to find out the best practices that will allow them to continue fishing but will also conserve sea turtle populations.
A total of 65 persons including scientists, conservationists and government representatives participated in the meeting. Twelve Latin American countries were represented: Argentina (2), Brazil (4), Colombia (3), Costa Rica (7), Ecuador (2), Guatemala (6), México (13), Nicaragua (2), Panamá (2), Perú (3), Puerto Rico (2) and Uruguay (1). Also, five non Latin American countries were represented by scientists that conduct or support research in Latin America: Germany (1), Australia (2), Spain (1), USA (11), UK (3).
On the 17th January the meeting started with national presentations about sea turtles interactions with national fishing practices, programmes and activities currently ongoing to minimize these interactions, and future projects that would be developed. A special format for these presentations was prepared. Later Juan Carlos Cantu talked about the best practices for handling, dehooking and liberating sea turtles captured incindentally, Joca Thome shared Projeto TAMAR-IBAMA’s experience working together with fishermen in Brazil, Marco Solano talked about the Inter American Convention for the Conservation and Protection of Sea Turtles (IAC) and the Second COP’s results and agreements.
The second day, the meeting started with the last part of the national presentations. During the rest of the day, six presentations were made; Randal Arauz talked about the importance and the role of on-board observers in sea turtle conservation; Martin Hall presented ideas to design and standardize experiments to reduce sea turtles incidental capture; Rod Mast gave the participants key points to collect funds and also a report about the activities of the Marine Turtle Specialist Group. Martin Laporta presented a talk on the importance of working with fishermen and their role in the conservation of sea turtles. Larry Crowder presented the Global Bycatch Assesment project and Gustave Lopez explained the use of Geographic Information Systems in the sea turtle incidental capture studies. The meeting ended with final reflections about all the information shared during the last two days. It is very important to mention that this meeting allowed many of the participants to increase their knowledge about what is going on with sea turtles and the incidental capture by fisheries. Several participants mentioned that in their countries there are no mitigation measures being applied. Moreover, in some countries there is a huge lack of information about the level of the impact that fisheries cause in sea turtles populations.
The XIII Meeting of Latin American Sea Turtles Specialists will be held next year in Greece two days before the 26th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. The Organizing Committee will soon be elected.
Acknowledgments: The Organizing Committee want to thank the following people for all their help to make the meeting posible: Thame Wibbels, Jaime Peña, Jeff Seminoff, Etilma Morales, Ana Barragan, Jack Frazier and Patricio Opay. Thanks to WWF, UICN and the IAC Secreatary for economic support.