Information to assist Torres Strait Islanders manage their traditional fisheries for green turtles and dugongs in a sustainable manner (T1.11).

Task leader: Ms Jillian Grayson, James Cook University.

The fisheries for turtles and dugongs are listed as Article 22 fisheries under the Torres Strait Treaty. The Indigenous fishery is predominantly for dugongs and green turtles. The harvest of turtle eggs in Torres Strait involves the eggs of several species, including the hawksbill turtle that is listed as a critically endangered species by the IUCN.

To date, catch monitoring for both dugongs and sea turtles has concentrated in the Torres Strait Protected Zone. Concerns about the sustainability of catch rates in Torres Strait and over harvesting in neighbouring countries have established an urgent need to develop scientifically robust monitoring strategies for green turtles and dugongs throughout the Torres Strait region including the Inner Islands. The turtle egg harvest has not been quantified anywhere in Torres Strait.

This project will work with Torres Strait Islanders to quantify the take of turtles and dugongs by four Torres Strait communities. Information on catch levels, the environmental, social, cultural and economic factors that affect the pattern of hunting and harvest levels and the composition and selectivity of catches, will be collected to provide the basis for improving community-based management and monitoring. The potential to use dugong tusks as a means of monitoring temporal changes in dugong life history parameters will also be investigated.

Objectives
To collect ecological, social, economic and cultural information relevant to the development of community-based management of the traditional dugong and green turtle fisheries of Torres Strait by working with Torres Strait Islander counterparts by:

Describing and quantifying the major social, economic and cultural factors that affect hunting pattern, hunting effort, hunting success and harvest levels of four communities (two relatively urban communities in the inner islands (e.g. Thursday Island and Hammond Island) and two relatively non-urban communities in the outer islands (e.g. Mabuiag and Badu).
Trialling and scientifically verifying different methods of community-based monitoring of catches of dugongs and turtles in the above communities with a view to developing correction factors for methods that are both culturally-appropriate and scientifically robust.
Describing the composition of the dugong and turtle catch of these communities in terms of sex and reproductive status.
Evaluating the selectivity of turtle catches by comparing the catch data on the community composition of turtles in major hunting areas collected by Dr Mark Hamann in a companion project.
Investigating the potential to use the tusks of dugongs to provide a record of major life history events.

Use all the above information to provide a scientific basis for the effective community-based management of the dugong and turtle fisheries of Torres Strait and to inform the strategic assessment of the fisheries to be conducted by AFMA to meet the requirements of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.