Anassessment of marine turtlepopulation statusand conservation in Cambodia HEN R Y DUFF Y,AYL IN MCNAMARA,BERR Y MU LLIGAN,KAT E WEST,PHALL A L ENG
RYLIDA VONG,KIERAN MURRAY,SOUR KIM,MANJULA TIWARI andMARIANNE TEO H
Abstract Cambodian waters historically supported signifi- cant nesting populations of marine turtles up to the early 20th century. However, although fishing and coastal devel- opment have intensified, marine turtle conservation has received little recent attention. We collate the available in- formation on Cambodian marine turtles by summarizing NGO and government data from provincial consultations, fisheries surveys and nesting beach surveys, and synthesize our findings into recommendations for the conservation of marine turtles in Cambodia. The available data indicate that a small and highly threatened marine turtle population persists, despite significant declines driven by intense his- torical harvesting, widespread bycatch, loss of nesting habitat, marine wildlife trade and ongoing poor compliance with wildlife protection regulations. To improve the conser- vation status of Cambodian turtles,we recommend (1) revis- ing relevant legislation to better protect marine turtle habitats whilst increasing compliance with gear restrictions and threatened species laws in priority sites, (2) trialling alternative fishing gear or gear modifications to reduce bycatch, (3) continuing capacity building for locally driven marine turtle conservation science, (4) identifying and map- ping beaches with high nesting potential and protecting them from further coastal development, and (5) investing in transboundary collaborations to improve the monitoring and management of the turtle populations that range between Cambodia and neighbouring countries.
Keywords Cambodia, fisheries bycatch, marine turtle, South-east Asia, turtle conservation
Introduction
available remains a widespread challenge, particularly where threats have not been quantified and historical pop- ulation baselines are absent (Bjorndal & Bolten, 2003; McClenachan et al., 2006). In the case of marine turtles, the paucity of knowledge about their status in South and South-east Asia has been highlighted (Shanker & Pilcher, 2003), and has continued to hamper management of vari- ous subpopulations (Mortimer & Donnelly, 2008; Tiwari et al., 2013). Although the number of marine turtle projects in the region has increased significantly, leading to richer data on populations and conservation, the availability of data in certain areas of the Gulf of Thailand remains low (McNamara et al., 2015). This is especially the case in Cam- bodia, where five marine turtle species have been recorded historically: the hawksbill Eretmochelys imbricata, green Chelonia mydas, leatherback Dermochelys coriacea, logger- head Caretta caretta and olive ridley Lepidochelys olivacea turtles (Try, 1999). The historical literature describes once-abundant ma-
T HENRY DUFFY (Corresponding author,
orcid.org/0000-0002-9360-5142,
henry.duffy@fauna-flora.org), BERRY MULLIGAN,KATE WEST*, PHALLA LENG, RYLIDA VONG,KIERAN MURRAY (
orcid.org/0000-0003-1332-5747), SOUR KIM and MARIANNE TEOH† Fauna & Flora, The David Attenborough Building, Pembroke Street, CB2 3QZ, Cambridge, UK
AYLIN MCNAMARA Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
MANJULATIWARI Ocean Ecology Network, Research Affiliate of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Marine Turtle Ecology and Assessment Program, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, La Jolla, USA
*Currently at: Social Finance,Walker Books, London, UK. †Also at: Marine Management Organisation, The Fish Quay, Plymouth, UK
Received 22 September 2021. Revision requested 5 January 2022. Accepted 1 July 2022. First published online 20 February 2023.
rine turtle populations in Cambodia. Tirant (1885) reported intensive hunting of hawksbill and olive ridley marine turtles for meat and scutes. Le Poulain (1941) detailed nest- ing during December–May and listed Cambodian villages where large numbers of turtles were caught at nesting sites. Intentional in-water fishing of turtles is also mention- ed, with descriptions of fishers driving turtles into fixed shallow-water nets. Le Poulain (1941) noted that egg re- moval was reducing turtle numbers rapidly, to the point that the Governor of Cochinchina (a former colonial area in South-east Asia) banned the cooking, eating and selling of turtle eggs in 1923. Similar exploitation of marine turtles has been described in the adjacent Vietnamese regions of Phu Quoc and Ha Tien (Hamann et al., 2006). More recently, greater attention has been given to the Cambodian freshwater environment than to its marine areas (Jensen & Ing, 2014). However, since 1999 the Cambodian government, in collaboration with NGOs and through regional agreements, has worked to gather infor- mation and implement conservation actions for marine turtles (Fisheries Administration, 2017) and the wider ma- rine environment (Teoh et al., 2020). The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has jurisdiction over aquatic resources through the Fisheries Administration,
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2023, 57(2), 160–170 © Fauna & Flora International, 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605322000862
he design of robust conservation strategies for threat- ened marine species in contexts where few data are
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