Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2017L00641:body:0:p6
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2017L00641
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 14439–17642

change and variability
A3 Reduce the impacts from marine debris
A4 Minimise chemical and terrestrial discharge
A5 Address international take within and outside Australia's jurisdiction
A6 Reduce impacts from terrestrial predation
A7 Reduce international and domestic fisheries bycatch
A8 Minimise light pollution
A9 Address the impacts of coastal development/infrastructure and dredging and trawling
A10 Maintain and improve sustainable Indigenous management of marine turtles
B. Enabling and measuring recovery
B1 Determine trends at index beaches
B2 Understand population demographics at key foraging grounds
B3 Address information gaps to better facilitate the recovery of marine turtle stocks

Figure 1: Adult green turtle tracks, Raine Island, Queensland.
 Photo: © Copyright Geoff Richardson

1 INTRODUCTION
Six of the world's seven species of marine turtle occur in Australian waters and are listed as threatened, migratory and marine under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). These species are the EPBC Act listed threatened 'endangered' loggerhead (Caretta caretta), olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) and leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) turtles; and 'vulnerable' green (Chelonia mydas), flatback (Natator depressus) and hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) turtles.
Within Australia, marine turtles are predominantly found in the waters of Queensland, Northern Territory and north Western Australia, although there are a few sightings of most species recorded around south-eastern Australia. Leatherback turtles are known to forage and migrate throughout Australia. There are only a few large nesting aggregations of the green, hawksbill and loggerhead turtles left in the world, and Australia has some of the largest aggregations in the Indo-Pacific region. Flatback turtles nest only in Australia and forage over the Australian continental shelf into continental waters off Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
Marine turtles are reptiles that are highly migratory, utilising widely dispersed habitats throughout their life cycle. Marine turtles require both terrestrial and marine habitats to fulfil different life history stages. They also display late maturation as well as experience high juvenile mortality. All these traits mean that they are slow to recover from population declines and are vulnerable to a wide range of threats.
Historically, marine turtles were described as abundant in Australian waters in the early 1800s. From the mid-1800s European settlers commercially harvested green turtles for general consumption of meat and eggs, for turtle soup and meat export and hawksbill turtles for the tortoise shell trade[44, 82]. Although the commercial harvest ceased in the mid-1900s, it had led to an observable decline in nesting aggregations of these species[44, 82, 240].
More recently, marine turtles have been subject to increased pressures, including from terrestrial predation of nests, marine debris, expanding urbanisation and industrial development along coastal strips, fisheries bycatch, deteriorating water quality, and loss of nesting and foraging habitat.
Marine turtles are not just facing these pressures