World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

INDONESIASome confirmation ot the export figures can be found in the Customs reportsof imports of tortoiseshell from Indonesia reported by the importingcountries. These are shown in Table 96. Japan reports imports of "belclco"separately, and this category is known to comprise only raw Hawlcsbill shelland to exclude stuffed animals. Comparison of these figures with theexports to Japan shown in Table 95 shows relatively good correlation up to1975 but rapidly increasing and much higher Indonesian exports in allsubsequent years. This probably indicates either the onset of an exporttrade in stuffed turtles from Indonesia to Japan or the date at which thestuffed turtles started being included in Category 0509200. Japaneseimports of bekko seem to have been running at about 2-6 t a year since 1971,with marked peaks in 1973 and 1977-79. These were attributed to the holdingof the Washington Convention and Indonesia's accession to CITES,respectively. Japan also reports importing three other categories oftortoiseshell products in its Customs statistics: "Tortoiseshell claws andwaste (excluding bekko)", "Worked bekko and articles thereof", and "Workedtortoiseshell (other than bekko) and articles thereof". Milliken andTokunaga (1987) confirmed that these corresponded respectively to raw shellof C. mydas . stuffed E. imbricata and stuffed C. mydas . Very few otherproducts were included in imports from Indonesia reported under theseCustoms categories. The average weight of bekko imported from Indonesia(788 g) indicates that bekko from a total of 17 612 large E. imbricata wasimported between 1984 and 1986. The average size of the stuffed animals isless well determined, but for E. imbricata it appears to be in the region of1.3 kg per animal and for C- mydas , about 2.3 kg. Thus the 93 052 kg ofworked tortoiseshell and 42 610 kg of worked bekko imported directly fromIndonesia between 1984 and 1986 would correspond to 40 457 C. mydas and32 777 E. imbricata . Japan also reports substantial quantities of importsof tortoiseshell products from Singapore, and it is believed that most ofthese represent turtles acquired in Indonesia (Milliken and Tokunaga,1987). No worked shell has been reported to be imported from Singaporebetween 1984 and 1986, but imports of unworked bekko ammounted to 9259 kg,which would represent shell from 11 750 large E. imbricata . Thus exports toJapan alone between 1984 and 1986 represent an average annual harvest of9787 large E. imbricata . 10 926 small E. imbricata and 13 486 C. mydas inIndonesia.Of the other countries to which Indonesia has reported exporting turtleproducts, only Hong Kong and Taiwan provide adequate Customs importstatistics. The trade with Hong Kong exhibits marked fluctuations, and itis difficult to discern a pattern. From 1974 to 1984, Indonesia reportedexporting a total of 245 t of raw tortoiseshell and 62 t of worked shell toHong Kong, while Hong Kong only imported 148 t of raw shell from Indonesia.Additional worked shell may have been imported, but Hong Kong's Customscategories do not separate this commodity. While Hong Kong undoubtedly usedto import turtle shell from Indonesia, the CITES Management Authority hasinformed us that in recent years none has been legally imported. Thus,shell reported under Customs Category 291167 is said to represent the shellof freshwater turtles (Luxmoore and Canin, 1985). However, in 1985, anexport permit for the export of 1 t of E. imbricata shell to Hong Kong wasissued by PHPA (Schulz, 1987). The imports to Taiwan are considerablyhigher than the exports reported by Indonesia, and according to importstatistics the Republic of (South) Korea was a major importer, but it doesnot feature at all in the export statistics. Trade with these two countriesmay therefore have been routed via an intermediate port (such as Singaporeor Hong Kong), which may have featured as the destination in the Indonesianexport statistics.259