163. Australia has been trying to develop trawler efficiency devices, that still goes by the acronyms as TED but has a different complexion to it. The trawler efficiency devices, as they are referred to in Australia, look at making the trawls more efficient. They also incorporate such added extras, as fish eyes, for juvenile fish that are associated as a bycatch with shrimp trawls. They are being developed in sub-tropical as well as tropical waters. They are not driven solely by turtle excluding pressures. They are in fact designed, if I am correct, the underlying assumptions for the trawler efficiency devices, is to sustain fisheries whether they are being commercial fisheries or recreational fisheries and to maintain the profitability of fisheries to prevent fisheries succumbing to financial hardship and also to maintain the viability of fisheries. So there is a cause of concern if shrimp trawlers are seen in the locality where there is a large recreational fishing. The recreational fishers are too keen to point their fingers at the trawling operations offshore. And therefore the trawlers have a responsibility to be able to answer these charges and say "yes, we will adopt trawl efficiency devices so that the juveniles of the fin-fish species of the recreational anglers or the professional fisherman wish to catch are not being harmed by the trawl fishery". So there is a trawl efficiency device that also serves as a turtle excluding device, but I think the thrust of Australia has been ... [tape turnover] ... the efficiency of the trawl, the responsibility, to make it a responsible fishery and to reduce conflict between the shrimp fishery and other fisheries operating in the area. I would like to conclude there and thank you for listening.

Mr. Chairman

164. Thank you very much. I do not particularly wish to put any sort of restriction on the two remaining experts, but given the time I would want to ask them to be as economical as possible in their answers with regard to the remaining time available to us. Perhaps at new points or where they have different views and try to avoid repeating where the material has already been covered.

Mr. Liew

165. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I will skip quite a number of the questions because I think they have been quite well answered by the other colleagues of mine. What I will I do is I will answer the US questions first concerning question 4 on TEDs. I would like to sort of expand it a bit and talk about trawling TEDs and bycatches in relation to trawls that are in use in the US and trawls that are in use in the complainant countries. I agree with Jack here that trawls are very destructive to the environment. It is a very destructive form of fishing and it catches everything in its path: from large animals - like sea turtles, large fish, sharks, rays, large groupers, sometimes tunas (Scombrids), they all get caught in the trawl, pomfrets, bream, all the way down to the very small fish which are the juveniles of those large commercially important fish. In addition to that, you get crabs, prawns and a whole lot of other invertebrates that are on the sea bottom. Apart from this process of dragging, the trawl device on the sea bed, it sort of scrapes the bottom many times and you may have a productive bottom and it eventually ends up like a desert. So, as Frazier has mentioned, there has been some call to ban the device in some countries but very few have really taken up the ban. Notwithstanding that, if you compare trawling in Malaysia or in the other complainant countries and trawling in the US, for example in Malaysia, when a licence is issued for trawling there is no distinction as to whether it can only catch fish or you can only catch prawns. If they are fishing in an area where there are prawns, then all they do is change the cod-end to a smaller meshed cod-end to catch the prawns. If they are fishing in an area where there are no prawns then they go for the fish and they change the cod-end to a larger mesh so that the smaller trash escapes. Almost all the catch from these trawlers are landed: the large commercially important fishes: the prawns and the trash fish. The trash fish refers to the small fish of the commercially important ones. All this is to provide the badly needed protein in these developing countries - that is why they catch and use everything. The larger fish are important so they are sold in markets, the trash fish they convert to fishmeal or animal feed and then the prawns are also sold in markets and if they fetch a good price then they are exported for the country's foreign earnings. Thus, for many of these trawlers the earnings they get from prawns is only a component of the total earnings.

166. This graph [graph 6, Appendix 2] shows you different years [pointing at the x-axis], the largest column is the trash fish component - that means the young, small fish which they use to convert into fishmeal. This component [middle "fish" column] is the larger, commercially important fish that they sell in the market. This component is the prawn [indicating the right column]. So every year the prawn is this [indicating the right columns]. So, when you put a TED on a trawler like this, ...as you know the TED gets rid of the larger fish. So you put a TED here and this will reduce [pointing at the fish column] - they are talking about losing some of the commercially important fish. This will remain in the bycatch [pointing at the trash fish column] - OK the trash fish in this trawler is the bycatch and will still be there - you do not handle the bycatch. You lose the larger fish. There is a difference in the US shrimp trawlers: this [indicating the prawns column] is what they want and all this [indicating the fish and trash fish columns] they throw away. Their bycatch is the fish and the trash fish because they only want the prawns. So I think that is the difference that we have to be aware of when we talk about putting TEDs on fish trawlers. So we have to look at this problem along the perspective of the fishermen. You are going to introduce a device to fishermen and you want them to comply. You cannot expect them to use a device and find they lose profits in terms of the large fish. When you talk about it [referring to TEDs] being an efficient device which gets rid of bycatch, in this case it is not the bycatch that it has got rid of, it's the larger fish - that is the bycatch that the US are talking about in their shrimp trawler that are excluded with the turtles. Yes, it gets rid of turtles.

Chairman

167. Can I just ask a question. Does the Thai TED take care of this problem or is this something which suffers from the same...

Mr. Liew

168. Well, the Thai TED is similar - it is just a similar device. It also gets rid of the large fish. Because, I mean, logically you look at the design of a TED - all the large animals are got rid of and all the small ones get into the net. Even though the Thai TED is similar, depending on the size of the grid, it would depend on the size of the animals that there are ejected. Even for the Thai TED, they have used it but are the fishermen happy with it? If you look at the most recent reports I think they are not too happy because they are losing fish.

The Ambassador of Thailand

169. Mr. Chairman, I am very sorry but I would just like to ask permission, but I can make certain qualifications as far as the Thai TED is concerned or you would like me to wait until the experts finish their answers to questions. In order not to leave any misunderstanding on this perception about the Thai TEDs. I want simply to say that the Thai TEDs is the response to an embargo imposed by the United States and then we would like to solve these trade problems. That is why the Fishery Department of Thailand has modified in the shortest possible time-frame without having to go through scientific experiment. Of course an elegant TED, as put by one expert. But the effectiveness, I am not quite sure because once we have put in place we still have to monitor and I think it would take many more years before we can say about the effectiveness of this Thai TED. Thank you very much.

Mr. Liew

170. It seems that they have problem. It is good if there is a TED device, if there is some kind of device that would get rid of turtles but then retain the big fish, the commercially important fish, and similarly get rid of all the trash, but still retain the prawns. We still have not been able to get that kind of device and I think this is the reason why the complainant countries have been quite reluctant to introduce TEDs in their trawlers because they still find this kind of dilemma. I think it is time here for research to be done to really work and find out whether we can improve on a device that would help save the turtles but still retain the big fish and the prawns. I would like here to sort of jump to question 8 of the US about how long it takes to adopt the TED. How long will the US be able to help us develop a device that the local fishermen will accept. If they can find a device that is suitable that would be the kind of time-frame and then introduce it to local fish trawlers. The local fish trawlers will be very glad to have a device that would exclude turtles, exclude the small trash fish and retain the big fish and prawns. I will appeal to the US with all their expertise and funding to help and find good solutions to this.

171. I would then like to jump to the question by the Malaysian submission. The first question: "would trade prohibition on the imports of shrimps to the US by itself save turtles from shrimp trawlers?" If the question is would TEDs save turtles, as what Frazier has interpreted it has, I would say yes, TEDs would save turtles. But would a trade embargo save turtles, I would say no and I would agree with Scott, by itself it would not. But by virtue of this case being brought up in the WTO dispute, it has put attention on many governments to the plight of turtles, irrespective of the outcome. This itself is a plus for turtle conservation. However, a shrimp embargo may undermine the efforts of turtle conservation and the protection of costal habitats especially in Malaysia. How is that possible? Because with the threat of an embargo it will carry a message that shrimp trawlers are the single most important cause of decline of sea turtles. Together with that message, it will also say that it is OK to continue with the present level of egg harvest, or even increase the level of egg harvest, because shrimp trawlers are the problem, not the egg harvest. Together with that message, it may also go with the message that it is OK to continue with the hunting of turtles for meat, because shrimp trawlers are the problem, not hunting. I mean you look at the irony of the situation of the shrimp trawler: he stops or is caught because he did not have a TED on his boat, even though he did not have any dead turtles. Just because he did not have a TED he is stopped and he is penalized. At the same moment a boat passes by, with 20 or 30 turtles going to the slaughterhouse. This situation is happening in Costa Rica where they allow slaughter of turtles but they use TEDs. They slaughter turtles for cosmetic [products] - this is happening in Bali, in Indonesia, where slaughtering is still rampant. It is very ironical. Another point is that it will also give the message that TED is more effective in protecting turtles at sea than closed areas as what we have in Malaysia for trawling. Trawl fishermen will then use this to fight for the lifting of zoning. They say "we have TEDs and we protect with environmentally friendly device so why can we not come in and fish in a nearby zone". They may use this as a case. Another point is that TEDs are not required if you do not export your prawns to the US - this is what the embargo is going to be. It will leave that kind of a message: TEDs are not required if you do not export your prawns to the US. So trawlers who do not export their prawns to the US will argue that they need not use TEDs. It is already happening. We have reports from fishermen from places who say "we do not export our prawns to the US, why should we use TEDs?" This creates a serious obstacle to the Fisheries Department, to the turtle conservationists who are presently experimenting with TEDs to try to introduce to these fishermen. We do not want to give them that message that if you do not export your prawns to the US, you do not need TEDs. We are still working on trying to find a suitable TED to introduce to them. Another point is when affected countries see they cannot sell their prawns to the US, they look for other markets, like Michael Guinea pointed out. Instead of using TEDs to save turtles, the fishermen would instead just look for other markets for their prawns. The purpose of the embargo will be defeated. They will sell their prawns to countries that are exempted from the embargo, like Japan or Singapore. These countries will repackage it with other prawns from aquaculture and ship it to the US. I feel that embargo is not the solution. It may create more problems to turtle conservation. I agree TEDs will help but you have to design a TED or produce a TED that is acceptable to the fishermen. You have to get them to accept and not force it on them. Fishermen are proud people - you force them and they will not do it. If there is an option of other markets, then they will just look for other markets.

172. I will go to the second question of the Malaysian submission. My other colleagues have brought up something about population sizes and long-term monitoring before you can detect whether a population has recovered or not. So they mention that you require very long periods of population monitoring because there is very high fluctuations and then you need many, many years before you can really say that the population is recovering. There are populations that I have here that show signs of recovery. Probably most of you have seen this [graph 7, Appendix 2]. This is the leatherbacks in St. Croix - quite a few years data and there appears to be an increasing trend and they are recovering. I am not saying they have recovered but they are in the process - the recovering process. This is the leatherbacks in South Africa. It has a very long dataset, ... many years, you can see the trend - they are recovering. Similarly, the green turtles of the Sabah islands [graph 8, Appendix 2]. There has been a decline but then they are recovering. If you talk about wide fluctuations, it is there, but if you follow the trend, they are recovering. So the efforts of these conservationists - they have spent many years working on this and getting the populations to recover and they are showing signs of recovering. You just cannot step in and say it has not recovered. How would they feel? They would feel they have not done something that is good. We have to recognize that they have done a good job. We have to recognize that the population is recovering. By the same token, it is very slow for us to recognize the populations are recovering but it is very quick for us to recognize that the population is declining. Why? In 5 years you find out the populations are going down very quickly and you jump up - it is declining! Why do you not give it 20 years. By that time it is too late. Recognition has actually been given to this population. They have been given awards for the fact that they have worked very hard to recover these populations and we have to recognize that it is so. Not only just recognize that, but it gives us hope. There are many populations that are down and we are using the recovering populations as examples that if you do conservation work properly, nesting conservation, there is a hope that your population will recover. For us, in Terengganu, our leatherbacks are very, very low and there have been talks in the state about forgetting the nesting beach and develop it for tourism for hotels. We are standing firm and we say "there is a chance that we can recover populations, look at this population [referring to graph 7]." We are using these as examples that populations are recovering.

173. Something that Jack Frazier submitted is the TED technology transfer. Yes, the US have worked very hard to try and transfer the technology of TEDs to many countries. But if you look at the amount of transfer of technology to the complainant countries I think it is nothing more than just the complainant countries requesting for the information about TEDs. I do not know whether you call it technology transfer or not, or it is just for getting information. For example, in Thailand - I was going through the letters to see what actually transpired - Thailand initiated a request for information about TEDs in 24 April 1992. The US did not respond until January 1993. In both cases it was just sending information, requesting for information and sending the information. There was no offer by the US to run training workshops or join research on TEDs or anything like that. It was not until September 1996 that one workshop was held in Thailand and that was after the embargo. In Malaysia also all the correspondences are just request for information. To Pakistan there was nothing. To India, the first correspondence was in 1982 - it was a request for information on TEDs and in August 1992, India...

The representative of the United States

174. I do not know what this is in response to. This is not a question, this is a recitation of which apparently appears to be from the various briefs of the complainants and I think this is inappropriate. We have been holding our fire, but this is now getting out of control.

Chairman

175. I wonder if we could just try and keep to the questions as they are framed and move along because we are now getting very short on time and we still have one other speaker.

Mr. Liew

176. Basically, what I am trying to say here is that use of TEDs cannot be applied straight away. You cannot take from one country and straight away apply to another nation. There has to be some kind of work done to see its suitability. I feel that the US has not really come out to work with the complaining countries to transfer their technology.

Chairman

177. Could we just keep to the scientific aspects of the question because that is getting more into the subject matter of the dispute and away from the scientific facts which is really the purpose of the expert process. I am sorry to interrupt you but perhaps we could try and deal with the scientific bits because time is getting a little bit short.

Mr. Liew

178. Well, basically, OK. I will then end by saying I am a turtle biologist. I am just as concerned about conserving sea turtles as turtle biologists in other countries. I have written, we, in Malaysia have written, for information about TEDs and we have also suggested to our Fisheries Department to try and work and develop TEDs. But, all in all, I just hope that TEDs should be introduced in a more friendly, cooperative manner. I do not think that trying to get people to comply with TEDs by an embargo would solve the problem and I shall end here. Thank you.

Chairman

179. Mr. Poiner, there is not a lot of time left. We have now got some questions that have been put forward by Thailand and these have been circulated in writing [see Appendix 1]. Necessarily, the answers are going to be rather brief because of the remaining time. In addition to the other questions perhaps I could ask you to look at those and then I will give the other experts also an opportunity to say something briefly on those as well.

The representative of the United States

180. Mr. Chairman, before we go to the Thai questions, I would ask that you look at the first two on the second page [questions 2 and 3 by Thailand, Appendix 1] which are really not a question. It is not a scientific question but just ask the experts whether they know something about Thailand - it is not really a scientific question and the second question is not really a scientific question either. I guess the second question would be "are they effective?" and premises falls "are the experts aware that Thai TEDs have not been found effective?" when there is a scientific study showing that they are effective. So you cannot ask a question, with a false premise. I would ask that these questions be struck or re-phrased.

Chairman

181. I can certainly see the point on those first two questions but the third one on time is one that bears on something that we have already been discussing. I do not think that any of these, because they are in fact bearing on matters which have been extensively covered already, actually require very much time in the answers at any rate. So perhaps the experts could bear that in mind. Mr. Poiner would you like to continue please.

Mr. Poiner

182. Thank you. I will start with the Malaysian questions and in the interest of time I will try to be as brief as possible. Turning to the first question to all experts relating to the trade prohibition, I think there is really two aspects to this. The first is the trade issue, in the sense that if a country is not exporting to the US, then a prohibition would have little effect. Australia is a good example of that. Very little of the product goes into the US and unless there is subsequent indirect impacts on the market in terms of realigning where the product is eventually going, that would have very little impact. There is also a biological perspective on this in terms of the use of TEDs. I think I shall try and briefly summarize what my view on this would be. My professional view is that I think that the current data on the incidental capture of sea turtles in shrimp trawl fisheries offers an estimate of trawl induced mortality and allows comparisons with other sources mortalities. For some species and some breeding units, I think that current data does not give a clear indication about the effects of these mortalities on the turtle populations, apart from probably some of the US examples. But the evidence does suggest that it is an important source of mortality for many species and breeding units. Given that, I think we have heard about the precautionary principle and I think that is a valid principle in terms of managing these sorts of issues. I think there is a need to reduce the capture of turtles in trawls, but I would emphasize that needs to be part of a wider programme to reduce all sorts of mortalities and that part of that programme is identifying the source of mortality for the breeding unit that you want to manage. Finally, the use of TEDs is one of several possible measures that could be used to reduce turtle captures in trawls.

183. I will now move on to the second question from Malaysia in relation to acceptable recognized methods of determining population sizes. We have heard a lot about this and I can generally concur. I just want to make the point that there are three issues that are critical here. One is the determination of what is being called breeding unit and there are methods that relate to things like genetic methods, tagging methods and a variety of others. Then, there are other ways of measuring trends in populations, because the key to this is determining the trend in a population. Most of these revolve around breeding females at beaches and the important issue there is to be able to be detect trends over long periods of time. Those periods of time are a combination of the life history of the animal being studied and for these turtles that is a long period of time - 10, 20 or 30 years is not unexpected. There is also the factor of the biophysical events that impact on those populations and the best example we have all heard of is the impacts of the "El Niño" phenomenon in the West Pacific populations. The important issue is identifying the breeding unit and then having statistically robust estimates of the population that you can use to detect trends over the appropriate time-frames. Our methods will be improved, they will change and that is part of the process. Moving on to question 3, I will just simply say that I think the concept of a breeding unit is a key and critical concept. That is what we need to focus on in developing management strategies for these animals. Question 4, in general I agree with most of my colleagues - great care should be taken in generalizing any data outside the areas studied but it really does depend on the study and depend on the question being asked. Jack's answer to this was a very good one in the sense that if you are studying green turtles in the Atlantic and show that they do migrate, I think it is a reasonable assumption to help you frame a question for Pacific green turtles that they are also likely to migrate. It can be done but should be done with great care and then should be followed up by studies to get the data specific to that population.

184. Moving on to question 5, that there are sea turtle populations which are quite healthy, I too would have to question the use of the word "healthy". I think that is a fairly difficult word to define in terms of a population study. I think there are a few examples of breeding units which either have not shown the drastic declines of many populations - probably a reasonable example of that is the Raine Island population. I should have made the note that I too think that these questions need to be framed in terms of time-frames and the time-frame that I have assumed in this is about the 20- or 30-year period for such data. Assuming that sort of time-frame that we are looking at, then I think there are a few examples of populations that have not shown drastic declines and the South African one is a good example of populations that are probably increasing. But I think for most stocks there is a general agreement that populations are at low levels and I think that there is still debate about the nature of recovery and if recovery is occurring in those populations.

185. Moving on to question 6 of the Malaysian submission: what species are the dominant species impacted by trawling. This, like a lot of things that we have heard today and yesterday, this really does depend on the fishery and the distribution of the turtles in respect to that fishery. We do have 4 fisheries where we have very good data looking at what species and where the important species are impacted, coming from the US and Australia. In the US, in one of those fisheries, it is loggerhead that is certainly the major species being impacted or was impacted and that is the Southern Atlantic in terms of the Gulf of Mexico - loggerheads and Kemp's ridleys. However in Australia, for example, the Northern Prawn Fishery, it is flatbacks and olive ridleys which are the key species impacted and on the Queensland Eastcoast it is loggerheads and green turtles. So the point I am making is, it really does depend on the fishery. I think some care is needed in making global generalization based on data from one area.

186. Moving on to the United States questions: the simple answer [to question 1] is yes. Yes, although I think, and my colleagues have expanded to some extent, but I think these sorts of questions -it's over-simplifying a very complex issue and I think that in dealing with these issues, one needs to be quite careful and quite specific to the fishery or to the breeding unit or to the species that you are addressing. I think we have spent quite a bit of time on that. I guess in terms of this, the questions themselves are a bit of an over-simplification of the situation.

187. Moving on to question 2, some of my colleagues have referred to the numbers games. I note that really what we are talking about here is interpreting complex data and data from a variety of sources basically using modelling techniques. I think, in using modelling techniques, they are essential and they are probably one of the few tools that we have to really look at predictions of the impacts of management measures over long time periods. However, in using those modelling techniques, we need to be very careful in terms of making very clear about our assumptions because, as I said yesterday, assumptions being made in our models and how we deal with some of the uncertainty in our models.

188. I think what you will find is that tools are very good but if we do not clearly state those assumptions and those uncertainties then it is very difficult to interpret the outcomes. I will use the example of Crouse and Crowder models which demonstrate that the impacts of trawling on sub-adult and adults potentially do have a major impact on the population. Similar models by other people, for example, Somers in Australia, where a slight modification of things like egg and hatchling stage mortality rates come up with a somewhat different picture. Then more recently, studies by Chaloupka and others, who use different sorts of modelling approaches and somewhat different assumptions, come up with indications of the importance of managing to control for egg mortalities. The point I am making here is that these are very valuable, very useful tools. However, we should be careful in terms of over-simplifying some of the numbers that are used in these tools and we have a bit of an example of it here. Moving on to question 3. Again I think the simple question here depends on the breeding unit and the source of mortality in terms of determining the relative importance of minimizing mortalities from shrimp trawling. Again I think we have had quite a lot of discussion about that and I do not need to say much more. Moving on to question 4. Again, properly installed and used, yes, TEDs are very effective eliminating turtles from a trawl. However, in my answer to question ... [end of the tape] ... if you have a properly installed TED in a trawl and a turtle enters that trawl, there is a very very high probability that that turtle will leave that trawl without being caught in the cod end. Moving onto question 5, I think my answer to one of the Malaysian questions and I won't repeat it, basically what I would say is that the current data does demonstrate that for many breeding units the incidental capture, not for all but for many breeding units of some species, the incidental capture of turtles in shrimp trawls is an important source of mortality. The data, apart from one or two populations, does not give a clear indication about the effects of these mortalities on the breeding units or the populations, or the stocks themselves. However, again, I think that it's rather prudent to reduce the capture of turtles in trawls but again not in isolation of other measures to reduce other sources of mortalities. By themselves, I doubt whether that would effectively conserve these populations.

189. I think I will move on now to question 6, time and area closure. I would like to spend a few minutes on this Mr. Chairman. A little bit of comment on approaches to fisheries management: there are generally two approaches, what we term input controls and output controls. Without going into great detail, shrimp fisheries are generally managed on input controls simply because of their short life period. Most shrimps you are talking about, one or two years max. and because of the variability in terms of the natural variability in the catch from environmental processes. What this means is that things like total allowable catches and ITQ management systems really don't work for shrimp fisheries and I can't think of an example where they are applied. What that means is that they generally use import control measures and they will range from things like gear restrictions and gear modifications. These are commonly used in, if I'm correct, the Gulf of Mexico, together with other management measures such as area and time closures. Now I think again we should be very careful of generalizing about some of the measures used for one or two fisheries to all fisheries and it's not correct to suggest that area and time closures are important and very useful and very effective measures used in fisheries management particularly for species like shrimp. They generally use the things like the protection of critical habitat. For example, many species of tiger prawns, which are very important species in the Pacific, as juveniles only live in sea grass communities. Hence, if you are going to manage that fishery, you have to manage the sea grass community. Similarly, for many of the white shrimp only live in mangroves. So, often you will find in this part of fisheries management you'll have permanent closures of shallow water areas that are supporting for example sea grass communities. They are also used to enhance the value of the catch, so you'll tend to have time closures to maximize the return on the size of the products. So for example, you'll find that there'll be what's called pre-season monitoring of the size of the catch so as to maximise the value of the catch when it's caught. Because, for example, the Japanese market like shrimp about this big and the difference between the returns on a shrimp that big and that big are quite large, so time closures we use for that. Time closures are also used to enhance recruitment. For example, you get periods when the fishery is shut down around breeding times actually to enhance, for example, egg production. They are also being used to minimise interactions between fisheries. One of the two examples I can think of is Indonesia with the in-shore traditional and artisanal fisheries being separated from the larger industrial trawl fisheries. Similarly in Northern Australia, in Torres Strait; you get a similar example in Papua New Guinea. These are well and commonly used techniques and management tools in many fisheries. In that, they offer an opportunity to be useful in terms of turtle management of the incidental catch of turtles. So I can think of two examples of this that I am well aware of, both directly and indirectly. An indirect example would be probably in the Northern Australian prawn trawl fishery for example, the lower catch rate of green turtles compared to the East Coast prawn trawl fishery, probably can be explained simply because of a permanent closure of shallow water in the Northern prawn fishery to sea grass communities. The closure has driven the fleet, if that's the correct word, further off shore than say the corresponding East Coast prawn trawl fishery. Another more direct example is in a place called Mon Repos, near Bundaberg on the East Coast of Australia where it is a loggerhead nesting area. Seasonal closure of trawling off shore which is in place now, I think will be effective in terms of reducing the trawl catch of those breeding females as they migrate to that beach. I don't think we should exclude area and time closures as a potential tool for the management of this issue. However, like all these things it will depend on a variety of other things particularly the nature of the fishery, the nature of the socio-economic issues surrounding the fishery and all those sorts of things.

190. Do we have enough knowledge about hot spots? [question 6 by the United States] No we don't. For some breeding units we do, for some areas we do, again these generally come from places like for example in Australia, where we can identify different catch rates of turtles in different areas of the fishery, both in relation to the feeding and breeding areas. But, generally that information is not available. I will skip question 7 because that is addressed to Dr. Eckert. The final one, the adoption of TEDs by shrimp trawling fleets [question 8 by the United States]. In my comments yesterday, I used the example of the introduction of bycatch reduction devices, including TEDs, in the Australian shrimp trawl fisheries to demonstrate that this is not necessarily a quick process, because in many of the documents surrounding the case is that this is an issue of a matter of months. The example I used in Australia where it is probably going to take 6 to 8 years (I'm not saying that it will take 6 to 8 years in every area), but I think that by the same token it's somewhat naive to think this can be done in a matter of months. I say that because really, the introduction of these sorts of devices in the fishery is really a three stage process. The first process is the identification of the device that potentially will do the job for you and doing the job depends on what you want to exclude. For example, I note that the earlier comments about elimination of trash but retention of large fish that my colleague Mr. Liew made. There are two types of bycatch reduction devices. There are types that work on basically mechanical means and that's often the TEDs: they're actually rigid structures in the net that a large object like a turtle will hit and be forced out of the net. There's also other devices that work on the relative swimming ability of the animals being caught. So these are often used to eliminate the trash species, so basically there's things called square-mesh panels, fish eyes, a whole variety of things that now basically work on the assumption that fish can generally swim a lot better than prawns, so the fish move down the net and swim out these holes. There are also devices that use a combination of these things. For example, you might want to eliminate large animals plus so some of the trash. So really you need to identify what you are trying to do and then select your device. Now, the device will need to be modified for the individual characteristics of the fisheries and by that I mean it relates both to the types of nets being used, the types of vessels being used, the types of fishing strategies being used but also relates to issues in terms of types of environments being fished. So, for example, in some areas of shrimp fishing, where there is a large community of animals that live on the bottom, particularly sponges, they tend to clog a lot of the rigid TEDs; so again you need to develop ways of overcoming those sorts of problems. You really need to identify the device and demonstrate that it is effective and that's what we have been talking about in terms of properly installed TEDs to eliminate turtles. That's only one part of a three stage process. The next stage is the extension of that gear or gears into the fishery which is really similar to most agricultural fisheries or whatever processes where you want to change the behaviour of a group of people, be it fisherman or farmer; it generally involves an extension process and the length of that really does again depend on the particular nature of the fishery. What I'd think is the final part of the process is what I call the formulation of the use of the gear to the management plan or the way the fisheries are managed. That's when you get into the issues of whether you are doing a regulatory approach, i.e. compulsory introduction, or are you doing as what I talked about, a target approach. So, you are setting a target and how you achieve that target is really up to the fishery. I think it is important to realise that this is not simply a process of demonstrating this device will eliminate turtles, it's a process of demonstrating that in the extension and then the capture of that information and formulation of that information into the management plans that govern those fisheries. Mr. Chairman I will try to deal with questions raised by Thailand although it might be more efficient to rotate through and I can read this, as well as my other colleagues.

Chairman

191. Yes, perhaps I can just say that since the time is now reached almost one o'clock, I think I would like to give the experts each at least one last opportunity to say whatever few brief summary words they want to, or add any other points they would like to at this stage. Perhaps they could, in doing so, add any brief answers that they may have on those Thai questions and incorporate that together. We've had, I think, all the questions and points from the parties and I don't intend, unless there's any reason to do so, to offer the floor to the parties again and perhaps we can just go into the final round and, as I say, include the answers as far as possible. But, please try and be as brief as you can. Dr. Eckert.

Dr. Eckert

192. I will try to break my typical mould here and I'll go through this promptly. Let me deal with the questions first [questions by Thailand], just briefly. The first four questions and the first three questions deal with the application of TEDs in a fishery. From my own experience, what I can say is, having worked with shrimp fishermen on the Georgia Coast for a number of years before moving to California, TEDs are not difficult to operate, they are a very simple device. However, as Dr. Poiner pointed out, fine tuning or modification of the basic design is very important to the individual fishery. I know there has been tremendous work done on that. In the United States they instituted a programme of TEDs certification, by which shrimpers can develop their own TEDs and bring them to a certification programme and get them certified as being a viable TED, that would work in the kind of environments that they were working in. That apparently has been very effective and quite creative developments in efficient TEDs. "Mandating TEDs requirements is not guaranteed that sea turtle mortality will be reduced?" Like all laws and regulations I don't know any of us that actually drive the speed limit either. The enforcement of a regulation is only as good as its enforcement. However, if one shrimper uses the TED, the turtle mortality will be reduced. I think we are all in agreement that TEDs reduce the take of sea turtles and so if one person follows the law, it's going to be in that game for the sea turtle populations. On the second page relative to the first two questions [question 2 and 3 by Thailand]. The answer to the first question, no, I was not aware of any developments in the TED, the same thing for the second question, I am not aware of any expert testing the TEDs other than there was one brief report included in our briefings provided. Relative to the last question, it would depend on the situation, the country, the fishery and so on and so on. I'm probably not in a good position to speak to that.

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