Sustainable Use of Hawksbill Turtles: Contemporary Issues in Conservation

  • N. Mrosovsky
Key Centre for Tropical Wildlife Management: 2000. 107 pp. AU$25 ( pbk)

For the current meeting of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; 10–20 April) in Nairobi, the Cuban government has submitted proposals to allow a small number of hawksbill turtle shells to be harvested from Cuban waters and exported to Japan. A CITES Appendix I listing has since 1976 banned the trade of this turtle's beautiful shell, which is prized for its use in ornaments and inlays, on the basis that the turtle populations were affected by international trade and that the species was threatened with extinction.

The Cuban proposals argued that hawksbills (Eretmochelys imbricata) can be sustainably harvested, and that active international trade would promote the turtle's conservation. These proposals have generated passionate controversy, and a balanced analysis is needed of whether such a strategy might be applied to hawksbills. Mrosovsky's book falls short of fulfilling this need.

The book, timed to influence the CITES debate, is an emotional plea in support of Cuba's position. It argues that there is a general lack of information on wild populations, so that effective conservation management is invariably experimental and adaptive. It also says that available information indicates that hawksbill turtles are not in danger of extinction, and that allowing the turtle trade, provided it is sustainable, is a better conservation strategy than strategies based on protection. Finally, the book states that institutional mechanisms are in place to manage the wild populations and the trade.

Mrosovsky's first point is well developed. Conservation decisions must often be taken without full knowledge of the situation, and sometimes the safest or most ‘precautionary’ step is bold experimentation. The book's other points, however, are less effectively argued. Mrosovsky's argument that certain populations of hawksbills are showing recovery does not negate the consensus that the species population is still only a tiny fraction of its historical numbers. The fact that hawksbills do not fit the ‘Critically Endangered’ category of IUCN, the World Conservation Union, says nothing about their inclusion in CITES Appendix I. Mrosovsky's assertion that sustainable use works for crocodiles, elephants, whales and rhinos does not establish its applicability to hawksbills. His diatribes against protection as a conservation strategy ignore the fact that most recovering populations of hawksbills are those that are being effectively protected. While the Cuban authorities have a well-managed programme, this does not obviate the need for the regional management of this highly migratory species, nor for effective regulation of the trade in Japan.

A fundamental requirement of any sustainable-use programme is that such use promotes conservation. Revenues from the harvest might be used to manage the wild population; local fishing communities might adopt the role of stewards of the resource; and other competing industries might be excluded. Mrosovsky fails to make any of these arguments, and puts forward as the primary benefits of trade only the avoidance of waste from incidental catching of hawksbills, and the use of revenues to construct an education centre in Cuba. These reasons are not compelling.

Argument by analogy and innuendo, disregard for scientific credentials, questioning the pecuniary motives of real and imaginary opponents, and the selective use of scientific data do not make for effective conservation advocacy. Unfortunately, these tactics have characterized both sides of the sustainable-use debate. This book is no exception, and does a disservice to proponents of sustainable use and to our Cuban colleagues.