Threatened Species Working Group (TSWG) Meeting
On June 12, 2023, BIONESIA attended The Indonesia Sea Turtle Symposium and the Greater Coral Triangle Region Side Meeting on ShellBank and the Asia-Pacific Marine Turtle Genetic Working Group at the Grand Mercure Hotel, Jakarta. This meeting was hosted by the Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries and WWF-Indonesia.
ShellBank a marine turtle traceability toolkit and global genetic database, was established in 2018 and formally released in late 2022 to support ongoing training, data collection, and analysis and to provide access to an open-source database to identify, track, and trace marine turtles globally.
Insights into these programs, progress, updates, and priority gaps for future research on sea turtle research have been discussed and workshopped with the view to building the Working Group membership and participation in this meeting.
One outcome of this meeting was the participants agreeing to establish the Indonesian Sea Turtle Working Group “Jejaring Penyu Indonesia” which focuses on strengthening in-country partnerships, understanding current sea turtle research in Indonesia, and identifying future gaps and needs.
