Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2017L00641:body:0:p21
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2017L00641
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 57853–60826

to maintain genetic diversity and long term evolutionary development
    * for the reintroduction of populations or recovery of the species.
Habitat critical to the survival of a species for marine turtle stocks has been identified by consensus of a panel of experts in marine turtle biology. Nesting and internesting habitat has been identified for each stock (Table 6) based on the following criteria:
    * Nesting habitat critical to the survival of green, loggerhead, flatback and hawksbill turtles includes at least 70 per cent of nesting for the stock (see Section 5.1).
    * As olive ridley turtle stocks in Australia are small and likely to have been significantly impacted by egg loss for several decades (see Section 5.4), nesting habitat critical to the survival of olive ridley turtles includes all documented nesting areas in Queensland and Western Australia, and beaches where nesting has been recorded with greater than ten nesting females in the Northern Territory (noting inter-annual fluctuations).
    * Nesting habitat critical to the survival of leatherback turtles includes all areas where nesting has occurred in Australia since 1996.
    * Nesting habitat critical to survival of marine turtles is of a geographically relevant scale. For example green turtles are known to move between islands of the Capricorn Bunker Group[136] within a nesting season, while leatherback turtles may move up to 400 km within a season[108].
    * Where relevant, nesting habitat determined to be critical to the survival of marine turtles includes areas that are: geographically dispersed; major and minor rookeries; mainland and island beaches; and winter or summer nesting.
    * To ensure the validity of long-term monitoring programs for assessing trends in nesting turtle abundance, all index beaches are considered habitat critical to survival of marine turtles.
    * Internesting habitat critical to the survival of marine turtles is located immediately seaward of designated nesting habitat critical to the survival of marine turtles. The internesting habitat critical buffer for green, loggerhead, hawksbill, olive ridley and leatherback turtles is 20 km[52, 56, 58, 88, 90, 106, 135, 158, 181, 194, 224, 231, 233, 235, 247, 263] and 60 km for flatback turtles[52, 56, 80, 86, 178, 233, 252].

Index Beaches
Index beaches are those that have been identified by marine turtle managers as important for long-term monitoring and are representative of the stock. They provide the information on which to determine a species conservation status. Index beaches require a statistically relevant number of individuals nesting and consideration is given to economies of scale including the presence of multiple species, feasibility for monitoring (physical access to the location and cost), and ability to repeat observations.
In Australia there are a number of long-term monitoring programs at index beaches that provide vital information underpinning management