Turtle Conservation and Management in East African Reserves

1. Turtle Conservation and Management in East African Reserves Eli Baginksi, Sasha Bishop, and Eva Ramey Lewis and Clark College Background: Removal of fishing pressure through marine protected areas (MPA) has been shown to increase biodiversity and abundance of species. The coast of Tanzania has thirteen established marine protected areas. Two of Tanzania’s most established island marine reserves are Mafia Island and Misali Island. Mafia Island Marine Protected Area is governmentally managed, and provides cash payment incentives to local fisherman to not fish within its boundaries. Misali Island on the other hand, is primarily managed by a local fishing village (Abdullah 1998). Their main incentive and conservation goal is for the park to increase the fishing capacity of the surrounding region.        While there are five main turtles species in Mafia and Misali island that play an important role in marine environment, only the hawksbill and green turtle nest in the reserves. The main threats to these species are the poaching and bycatch of adults and the raiding of nests.  MPAs have a dual goal of ecological protection and economic viability for fishing communities, and different management systems have approached the balancing of these goals from varied perspectives.  Our proposed study evaluates the impacts a local versus governmental management system has on the biological success of preserving turtle populations as well as measuring the social response to and compliance with reserve restrictions.   Methods: We will count the number of turtle nests that are successful (intact) and unsuccessful (abandoned or poached). Discovered nests and failed nest locations will be documented using global GPS. Our second census will count the number of boats present and actively fishing within and outside of the reserve boundaries. We will also interview local fishermen about their perspectives on the reserve, their general compliance, the occurrence rate of accidental bycatch of sea turtles, and how many fishermen are using illegal fishing technologies. This compliance data will be supplemented by observations of the number of turtles brought in to the docks on fishing boats. We will then use GIS spatial analysis to determine where protected areas, turtle nesting, and fishing are all occurring in order to determine effectiveness and provide suggestions for further protection. Question: What is the comparative effectiveness of a government established, cash-motivated reserve versus a locally established, capacity building  reserve in protecting East African turtle populations and the interests of community resource users?