World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

INTRODUCTIONVery large quantities of turtle meat, shell and leather products wereformerly imported to Europe and North America. The implementation of CITESis at least partially responsible for the fact that this trade has nowdropped to low levels. Particularly important in this respect has been theuniform implementation of CITES by the EEC countries which has forced Franceand Italy to withdraw their reservations on sea turtles. The curtailing ofinternational trade in turtle meat has meant that there is little threat toC. mydas populations from international trade, the major problem beingcommercial domestic trade. However there are several important exceptionsto this general rule: the export of leather from Mexico, Panama andIndonesia; the export of eggs from Indonesia and the Philippines; and theexport of stuffed turtles from Indonesia in commercial quantities and astourist souvenirs from a variety of countries.International trade in the shell of E. imbricata still gives considerablecause for concern. Although the imports to Europe and North America havebeen reduced to virtual insignificance, largely by the implementation ofCITES, the trade in the Far East may well account for more Hawksbillsannually than were ever consumed by the traditional western markets. Theprincipal importer is Japan, and Figure 1 illustrates how imports of bekkofluctuated over the years from 1950 to 1970. Historical levels of trade arehard to determine and although Figure 1 appears to show a marked increasefrom 1950 to 1973, the huge imports recorded in 1954 meant that the averageannual import in the 1950s was 32.5 t, similar to the 31.5 t in the 1960salthough much lower than the 44.7 t recorded during the 1970s. The mostobvious effects of CITES on this trade were the twin import peaks in 1973and 1979 associated, respectively, with the Washington Convention and theacceptance by Japan of the Convention. It is true that Japan imposed, andhas more or less adhered to, an import quota of 30 t of raw bekko a year,slightly lower than the average imports in the 1950s and 1960s, but it isnot known how this compares with the level of trade that had traditionallybeen carried out prior to the 1950s.Although Japan has a reservation on E. imbricata , it has an obligation underCITES Resolution Conf. 4.25 to ensure that imports are accompanied by apermit issued by the competent authority in the exporting country. Suchpermits should not have been issued by countries party to CITES. Prior to1980, when Japan accepted CITES, the countries party at that time hadsupplied about 55% of the imports of bekko, but this percentage droppedslightly to around 45% in the early 1980s. However, in 1983, 44% of importsof bekko were obtained from Parties. A marked change was apparent by 1986,when only 18% of bekko was obtained from Parties, and increasing quantitieswere imported from non-Parties, particularly Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, theMaldives, the Solomon Islands and Singapore. Bekko traders have now decidednot to import from Party states, and there was no such import in 1988(Kaneko, in litt. , 10 March 1989). Thus, although CITES has not causedJapan to curtail its imports, it has forced it to look to alternativesuppliers. A note of caution should be sounded here, because some of theshell from the new suppliers almost certainly represents turtles from thesame populations that were previously exploited by the old exporters. Forinstance, the imports from Singapore are of shell from Indonesia, and muchof the Caribbean trade will simply have been re-routed. However, concernhas been expressed that Japan's attempts to comply with CITES has resultedin an increase in overall exploitation in the Caribbean.The other way of examining the impact of CITES on the Japanese importfigures is from the point of view of the exporters. Table 7 shows thequantities of bekko imported to Japan from different countries in relationto the year in which they joined CITES. In many cases, the year of joining38