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About the Book
Marine turtles
become accessible to humans for brief episodes in their life
history, when they leave the open oceans and lumber onshore to nest.
These giant air-breathing turtles belong to the most ancient line of
living reptiles; however, poaching and egg depredation, development
along ocean and coastal zones, and the rapid expansion and
mechanisation of the fishing sector in the last few decades have
severely endangered these tenacious survivors.
Five of the
world’s seven species of marine turtles occur on the Indian
subcontinent. Many of these form part of regionally or globally
important populations. Unfortunately, information for most sites and
populations is unavailable or outdated, deriving from the initial
path-finding surveys that were conducted between the early ’70s and
’90s.
A GOI–UNDP-sponsored project was carried out between 2000–02 to
update information on the status of India’s marine turtles and to
provide an impetus to participatory conservation. This book
documents the results of surveys carried out under that Sea Turtle
Project.
Special Features:
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Status surveys
conducted under the GOI–UNDP-sponsored project, along the east
and west coasts of the Indian mainland, the Lakshadweep
archipelago and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
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Status of
marine turtles in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh
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Review of
fishery-related issues, including causes and effects of
incidental mortality, and potential solutions like turtle
excluder devices
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Review of
conservation efforts
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Legislation
and international instruments pertaining to marine turtles
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Research on
the biology of marine turtles and efforts to conserve their
habitats
This is the first book on marine turtles in India and the
subcontinent, with contributions from leading experts in studying
the ecology and conservation of marine turtles, from India and
abroad: contributors include Bivash Pandav, Biswajit Mohanty, Jack
Frazier, Belinda Wright, Rom Whitaker, among others.
About the Author
The Editors
Kartik Shanker is faculty at the Centre for Ecological Sciences,
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and adjunct fellow at the
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE),
Bangalore. He has worked on conservation genetics of marine turtles
on the east and west coasts of India and in the Andaman and Nicobar
Islands. His coastal and marine conservation programme at ATREE
works on policy and governance issues, focussing on marine turtle
conservation in Orissa. He is editor of the Indian Ocean Turtle
Newsletter, a newsletter for the conservation and management of
marine turtles in the Indian Ocean; Regional Vice Chair (South
Asia), IUCN/SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group; and executive editor
of Conservation and Society.
BC Choudhury serves as a faculty member at the Wildlife Institute of
India, Dehradun. He has been involved in the research and management
of aquatic endangered fauna for over thirty years. He was the
Wildlife Institute of India’s coordinator for the UNDP-assisted,
nationwide marine turtle conservation project of the Government of
India. He is a member of the IUCN/SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group
and has published numerous scientific papers on marine turtle
conservation and research in national and international journals and
currently directs several conservation programmes on marine species.
How to buy this
book
Contact:
Librarian,
Wildlife Institute
of India,
PO Box No. 18,
Chandrabani,
Dehradun – 248
001, India
E.mail:
library@wii.gov.in
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