MarineBio Blog

Todd Steiner of Sea Turtle Restoration Project Has Ended Sea Turtle Slaughter, Closed Deadly Fisheries and Protected Nesting Beaches During Two Decades of Global Grassroots Organizing

20th Anniversary – Big Splash – Nov. 14 – Berkeley, CA

Biologist and ocean activist Todd Steiner of Sea Turtle Restoration Project (STRP) in Forest Knolls, CA, near San Francisco has been fighting to stop the slide of sea turtles to extinction for 20 years. By using science and the threat of extinction to mobilize people around the world, Steiner’s organization has saved hundreds of thousands, or possibly millions, of disappearing sea turtles from death due to human activities. Mentored by the late environmental maverick David Brower, Executive Director Steiner, 52, founded Sea Turtle Restoration in 1989 to end the slaughter of 50,000 sea turtles in Mexico for skins and shells to make shoes and jewelry. After the slaughterhouse was closed and sea turtle products banned internationally, Steiner turned his attention to one of today’s biggest threat to the species: accidental by-catch in tuna, swordfish and shark fleets.

“Our first big campaign was to shut down a slaughterhouse and to end the legal slaughter of turtles in Mexico,” said Steiner. “It took a lot of hard work and determination, but we were finally successful in 1990. The olive ridley population of Oaxaca has increased significantly since. On the other hand, populations of Pacific leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles are crashing now. Both are extremely vulnerable to industrial longline and drift-gill net vessels fishing for tuna, swordfish and shark. If we don’t curb this threat, they will both go extinct. In fact, this is where we are concentrating most of our advocacy and policy work today.”

Sea Turtle Restoration Network is marking its two decades at the Dave Brower Center in Berkeley, CA, on Saturday, November 14. The Big Splash event is a fund-raiser for sea turtle conservation work and is open to the public. More details below and at http://www.seaturtles.org/bigsplash

In addition to closing the sea turtle slaughterhouse in Mexico, STRP’s successes have included compelling 20 nations to use turtle-saving gear in their shrimp fleets; creating policy reform that instituted a 200,000 square mile Leatherback Conservation Area (LCA) along the California and Oregon coasts; closing harmful longline fisheries in Hawaii and along the West Coast and stopping the World Trade Organization from gutting U.S. sea turtle protection laws. Read more at http://www.seaturtles.org

Yet throughout most of its history, Steiner and a crew of at most 10 or less full-time staff and legions of volunteers have worked out of small rustic offices in West Marin – first an old chicken coop and now a stone farmhouse on leased national park lands. Funded by donations and private foundations, the group’s budget has been a fraction of the larger U. S. environmental non-profit groups, but its impact has been significant and reverberated worldwide.

Before founding STRP in 1989, Steiner, a herpetologist, was directing Earth Island Institute’s Save the Dolphin Project, which spawned the dolphin-safe tuna label. Under STRP, Steiner then launched a turtle-safe shrimp certification label in the late 1990s that was the precursor to the seafood certification programs and seafood cards so prevalent today. Along the way, STRP also supported and/or helped start new grassoots groups to protect sea turtles including: Help Endangered Animals-Ridley Turtles (HEART) in Houston Texas; PRETOMA in Costa Rica; and MAKATA in Papua New Guinea. As STRP projects grew, Steiner created a new umbrella non-profit Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN), incorporated in 1997. TIRN projects include STRP, the GotMercury? campaign to reduce human exposure from mercury in fish and the watershed group Salmon Protection and Watershed Network.

STRP has always employed a range of strategies and tactics including demonstrations, letter-writing and petitions, lawsuits, scientific conferences, collaboration with fishers and government, regulatory processes, legislation and on-the-ground beach protections to protect sea turtles.

Recently, Steiner initiated a new sea turtle tagging and tracking research project in the Cocos Islands off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica to discover the migratory paths of green, hawksbill and other sea turtle species. The aim of the new Cocos Island Monitoring And Research (C-MAR) research project is to document migration patterns of east Pacific endangered marine species in order to establish protected migration corridors for these species.

Big Splash – the Sea Turtle Restoration Project’s 20th Anniversary Bash, will be held 7 to 11 pm, Saturday, November 14, 2009, at David Brower Center, 2150 Allston way, Berkeley CA 94704. Tickets $85-$100; student/activist discount; RSVP at http://www.seaturtles.org/bigsplash. Music by Blue Turtle Seduction [hear them at http://www.blueturtlemusic.com], food and drink and silent auction. Info 415-663-8590, ext. 105.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

The Aquarium of the Pacific’s Director of Education and our Director of Cephalopods, Dr. James Wood, found two amazingly cooperative two-spot octopuses (Octopus bimaculoides) while looking in tidepools at night on Catalina Island off of Southern California. This video shows the octopuses hunting, cleaning, squeezing through a crevice, and more. See Dr. Wood’s site “The Cephalopod Page” for more information about this amazing group of marine animals. We also recommend checking out the Octopus bimaculoides (Bimac/Californian Two-spot Octopus) Care Sheet at Tonmo.com.

Palau to create the world’s first “shark sanctuary”, banning all commercial shark fishing in its waters.

We couldn’t agree more and applaud President Toribiong’s efforts to protect the remaining sharks in our ocean. Hopefully other nations will follow suit. In 2006, French Polynesia decreed shark fishing, and therefore shark finning, illegal in its waters for all sharks except the mako shark, see page 9 of Oceana’s Report: Fishy Business [2 MB PDF]). Making shark fishing/finning illegal is the first great step. Enforcement of that law is the next, and is often where conservation efforts fail. We hope this is not the case for either Palau or French Polynesia or those that follow (come on U.S.A.).

The President of the tiny Pacific republic, Johnson Toribiong, announced the sanctuary during Friday’s session of the UN General Assembly.

With half of the world’s oceanic sharks at risk of extinction, conservationists regard the move as “game-changing”.

It will protect about 600,000 sq km (230,000 sq miles) of ocean, an area about the size of France.

President Toribiong also called for a global ban on shark-finning, the practice of removing the fins at sea.

Fins are a lucrative commodity on the international market where they are bought for use in shark fin soup.

As many as 100 million sharks are killed each year around the world.

“These creatures are being slaughtered and are perhaps at the brink of extinction unless we take positive action to protect them,” said President Toribiong.

“Their physical beauty and strength, in my opinion, reflects the health of the oceans; they stand out,” he told BBC News from UN headquarters in New York.

The president also called for an end to bottom-trawling, a fishing method that can destroy valuable seafloor ecosystems such as coral reefs.

“The need to protect the sharks outweighs the need to enjoy a bowl of soup”

Read on: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8272508.stm

Join us and send a thank you to Johnson Toribiong, President of Palau for his efforts at the Shark Savers website: http://www.sharksavers.org/en/get-involved/sign-these-petitions/608-thank-you-palau.html

Obama Administration Officials Release Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force Interim Report - September 17, 2009

WASHINGTON, DC – Obama Administration officials today released the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force Interim Report for a 30-day public review and comment period. The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, consists of 24 senior-level officials from Administration agencies, departments, and offices. The report provides proposals for a comprehensive national approach to uphold our stewardship responsibilities and ensure accountability for our actions.

“This Interim Report represents a wide spectrum of views and considerations, not just from within the federal government, but from members of the public, local officials, stakeholders and experts from coast to coast,” said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “It delivers on President Obama’s request for recommendations that will move this country towards a more robust national policy for our oceans, coasts and the Great Lakes and recognizes that we have a responsibility to protect the oceans and coasts for the benefit of current and future generations.”

“America’s oceans are vital to our prosperity, health, security and quality of life,” said Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “This is a historic day — for the first time, we as a nation say loudly and clearly that healthy oceans matter.”

…

Read on: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090918_ceq2.html

The Interim Report may be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/09_17_09_Interim_Report_of_Task_Force_FINAL2.pdf. The Task Force will provide a final report with all of its recommendations later this year. The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force home page is located at http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/oceans/. Submit comments by October 17th about the report at http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/oceans/interimreport/.

David Shiffman of “WhySharksMatter” recently unveiled the Online Community Environmental Action Network (OCEAN).

OCEAN is an organized method, utilizing all the resources of the internet, to spread the word about important environmental causes. Membership is free, and members will be asked to help promote certain blog posts, petitions, multimedia resources, and other conservation websites using a variety of resources (Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and Neatorama). If successful, it will allow the conservation movement to reach a wider audience.

To make this project successful, you can:

1) Write a blog post about OCEAN directing people to the link above for more information. The more members of the general public who hear about this project, the more successful it will be. We reach an enormous combined audience and if we pool our resources a lot of good can be done.

2) Become an OCEAN member and help spread the word via the online resources mentioned above! Anyone can join! E-mail at WhySharksMatter AT Gmail DOT com with the subject “OCEAN Application”, and I’ll send you the information!

3) Send David Shiffman content to distribute to the general OCEAN membership! Send an e-mail with the subject “OCEAN content to distribute.” Anyone can submit blog posts, petitions, or conservation websites; the best information will be shared with the OCEAN general membership.

Here’s how it works:

Members of OCEAN will help spread the word about certain blog posts, petitions, multimedia resources, and conservation websites. They will do this via the following online resources:

1) Facebook. Many people have a facebook account (I daresay most). Facebook has an easy link-share feature (indeed, some of you found this blog because of Andrew or I using the link-share feature).  If you post a link to your facebook profile and include a brief personal message about it, all of your facebook friends can see it in their minifeed and some of them will click on it.

2) Digg. Digg is slightly more complicated to use, but if you have a facebook account, you have a Digg account. Basically, Digg is a community of people combing the internet for cool sites and voting on how cool they are (i.e. “digging” them). If lots of people (i.e. OCEAN members) Digg a site, then it will move up in popularity and the entire enormous Digg community will see it. Though any site added to Digg is technically viewable by the whole Digg community, the best way to spread information quickly is through the “Today’s Most Dugg” site, and to reach that we need a lot of OCEAN members to “Digg” a site.

3) Neatorama. Neatorama is a community blog that is meant to bring the “best of the internet” to its readers. It allows all of its registered readers to submit a website for consideration and then vote on whether a post is “Neat” or “Not” for 24 hours. If enough people vote it “Neat”, it is featured on the main page. Registering for Neatorama is free and only takes a minute.

4) Twitter. Twitter is a popular micro-blogging site, and thanks to services like TinyUrl it is possible to share links to those following your Tweets. This is probably the least effective way for someone to help spread the word if you don’t already have a Twitter account since it takes time to build up a following, but if you already have a Twitter account you can help!

E-mails will be sent to OCEAN’s general membership with a list of the best blog posts, petitions, and conservation websites. Each will have a direct link to post in your facebook profile, a link to where you can “Digg” it, and a link to where you vote “Neat” on Neatorama. Twitter users will receive a TinyUrl for those of you on Twitter.

OCEAN members will document what they helped to share and give me this documentation. Each month, the OCEAN member who helped the most will win a prize.

People who put lots of dedication and energy into OCEAN will be rewarded with leadership positions to help with the day-to-day operations.

Note: Content related to extremist groups or links that demonize people on the other side of the debate will not be shared. The primary focus is marine conservation. Send an e-mail to WhySharksMatter AT Gmail DOT com with the subject “OCEAN Application” and join the movement!