Study on incidental catch of sea turtle in fishing activity and its management

Abstract:

Sea turtles are important to the marine ecosystem. But there are only 7 species in 2 families and 6 genera that survived all over the world. And all of them are endangered now. The international community has attached great importance to the turtle conservation. The marine fishing activity often catches sea turtles accidentally. The shrimp trawl, gillnet and long-line fishery are the main power to by-catch. Nowadays, the international society has developed legal and policy frameworks that dominated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the regional fishery organizations and each government for the main force of management. Some useful resolution documents have been passed to conserve the sea turtle and reduce their incidental catch or harm. The main control measures are: the training of fishermen, modifying the fishing methods and gears, information reporting, observer program, port state control, regulating fishing logs and the policy of marine protection area. The technical measures are: turtle excluder devices (TEDs) of trawl fishing, narrow nets or increasing tie-down length in gillnet fisheries, and the circle hooks or mackerel baits in long-line fisheries. All the measures have made a positive effect. But the fishery management or scientific research in China is not much involved in these problems, and the lack of specific laws or regulations in this area needs to be perfected urgently. The advices are: (1) Popularize the concept of ecosystem based fishery management (EBFM); (2)Strengthen the cooperation of information communication continually; (3)Formulate a feasible standard, and use the market mechanism; (4)Use the appropriate control measures, and combined with other measures; (5)Training fishermen and promoting the conservation concept. China has started to attach importance to the development of sustainable fisheries. So it provides an opportunity to regulate the ocean fishing activities and to reduce the incidental catch or harm of sea turtles. How to catch up with the international management system, and how to create a win-win situation between ocean biodiversity and the livelihood of fishermen, must be considered.