Those efforts are helping us to build a brighter future for sea turtles and their habitats in South America and beyond. Scientific investigation has also advanced enormously in recent decades, with researchers from many nations, institutions, and disciplines now hard at work helping to answer key questions about the natural history and conservation of sea turtles. Dozens of those groups focus on sea turtles. It spawned an explosion in the number of national and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to conservation in South America. The 1992 “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro marked a turning point in the global conservation movement. Regional networks also play an important role in organizing the South American sea turtle movement, including the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST), the Southwest Atlantic Sea Turtle Network (ASO), the Groupe Tortues Marines France (GTMF), the South Atlantic Sea Turtle Network (SASTN), and the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative (ICAPO), to name a few. Moreover, all but Colombia, France (French Guiana), Guyana, and Suriname are party to the Inter-American Convention (IAC) for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles, which was established in 2001. All are also participating in related intergovernmental treaties, including the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Today, those threats include the effects of fisheries, loss of habitat to coastal development and to resource extraction, poaching, boat strikes, pollution, and climate change.Īs a result of those mounting threats and of the increasing environmental consciousness globally, all 11 coastal South American countries have responded with some form of national protective legislation for sea turtles. Over the centuries, what began as subsistence-level human exploitation has evolved into a variety of more severe and pervasive anthropogenic threats. Turtles have been sought for food and for other traditional uses throughout the continent’s human history. Sea turtles are important components of the culture and folklore of South American people. 24–25), as well as selected stranding data for the three South American coastal countries where nesting does not occur (see box, p. The maps also show in-water movements from satellite tags deployed in South America (pp. The maps that accompany this article show data that are provided by SWOT partners and that document sea turtle nesting abundance along this continuum (pp. Sea turtles range significantly farther south of this nesting arc as they forage in the Pacific off Peru and Chile and in the Atlantic off southernmost Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. 20–25).Īll five of South America’s resident sea turtles nest on the continent in a vast tropical arc that stretches clockwise from Piura in northern Peru to the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro this encompasses the Galápagos and other offshore islands (see maps, pp. A total of 12 distinct sea turtle subpopulations (also called regional management units, or RMUs) are found in South America, out of 38 that are described globally (see maps, pp. By the same token, turtles hatched on South American beaches are also known to travel throughout the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Caribbean Sea. Some have hatched on distant shores in Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, and the western Pacific. Thus, it is no surprise that many turtles found in South America arrive there from far away. Sea turtles are among the most migratory creatures on Earth. Hybrid sea turtles are also known to occur among the hard-shelled species in South America (see box, p. And although uncommon, even the range-restricted Kemp’s ridley is an occasional visitor to South American waters, leaving just one sea turtle that is a complete stranger to the continent: the Australian flatback. It is home to the world's largest rainforest wilderness and river system (The Amazon) and to the world's largest wetland (the Pantanal), at it has 144,567 km (89,830 mi) of coastline.įive of the world’s seven sea turtle species (hawksbill, green, leatherback, loggerhead, and olive ridley) call the Pacific, Atlantic, and Caribbean waters and the beaches of South America their home for at least part of their life cycles. The forth largest continent, South America is number one in biodiversity. From northern Colombia to Tierra del Fuego, the South American continent stretches some 7,149 kilometers (4,443 miles) and is 4,353 km (2,705 mi) at its broadest.
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