At the Twenty-fifth Session of the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) the question of sea turtles conservation and interactions with fishing operations was raised. The Committee agreed that "while taking into consideration existing work on sea turtle interactions and conservation, a Technical Consultation should be held in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2004". The FAO Fisheries Department was asked to organize the Technical Consultation with the following scope:
review the available information on the current status of sea turtle conservation including both incidental and direct catches, their impacts on the populations and other factors affecting the mortality of sea turtles;
review the new development of fishing gears and techniques to reduce sea turtle mortality by incidental catches and other techniques to improve sea turtle conservation;
produce, if appropriate, guidelines to reduce sea turtle mortality in fishing operations; and
consider desirable assistance to Members of developing countries for the conservation of sea turtles.
The Expert Consultation on Interactions between Sea Turtles and Fisheries within an Ecosystem Context was organized to provide technical input to the Technical Consultation. This information paper provides a summary of the Consultation's outcomes and outputs, including overviews of sea turtle status, fisheries impacts, possible managerial solutions, socio-economic aspects and recommendations for future work and actions.
