Sea turtle conservation symposium held in Goa

Panaji, Apr 30 (ANI): Over 500 people from 60 countries are participating in the 30th International Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation Symposium, being held in Panaji today.

Various sea turtle biologists, conservationists, academic researchers, students and activists across South Asia participated in the Symposium to discuss conservation and enetics of the turtles and also to share their knowledge.

The symposium is organised by International Sea Turtle Society (ISTS) in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) of the government of India and other like-minded organisations.

Workshops were held on various topics including rescue and rehabilitation of sea turtles, statistics, stable isotopes, conservation and marine invasive species.

Kartik Shanker, President of ISTS put forward their demand to conserve marine diversity.

"A small group of organisations and individuals within the region, that is, within India have come forward to put together a petition to declare ecologically sensitive areas around turtle nesting beaches, to protect them from the effect of coastal development, particularly ports and shipping. One of the things we have emphasized on this petition to the government of India is that we want local community concerns integrated to our demands for coastal and marine diversity conservation," said Shanker.

"The marine turtles have to come out on to the beach to lay their eggs so if the nesting area is okay, so, at least they are okay, but when they come to lay their eggs, they remain on the off-shore waters for about four months and if during that time there is a lot of marine fishing, they die," said Dr. B C Choudhary, a Wildlife Conservator, Wildlife Institute Of India (WII).

He added that about 20,000 turtles die due to marine fishing every year. (ANI)