Agreement Reached to Save Turtles
The agreement binds Australia, Iran, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, the United States and the Comoros islands to common efforts to save the world's seven marine turtle species.
Of the seven species, six are found in Australian waters, including the loggerhead, the green turtle, the hawksbill, leatherback, olive ridley and the flatback.
Traffickers smuggle some species to Asia where they end up on dining tables or as pets.
Australian Environment Minister Robert Hill said the memorandum of understanding for the conservation and management of marine turtles seeks to reverse the declining global population of these animals.
"All marine turtle species are experiencing serious threats to their survival, primarily from pollution and changes to their habitat and also from accidental drowning in fishing gear, over-harvesting of turtles and eggs and predation of eggs and hatchlings by other species," Hill said.
"Australia has a major role to play in the protection of these magnificent creatures. Our coastlines possesses some of the largest marine turtle nesting areas in the Indo-Pacific region, and have the only nesting populations of the flatback turtle."
Earlier this year, the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) warned that indiscriminate fishing and a thriving black market for turtle shells and leather products threatened an already depleted turtle population along the country's 700-kilometer (440-mile) coastline on the Indian Ocean.
The KWS report said that the oliver ridley, hawksbill, loggerhead, leatherback and green turtle species once commonly found there were endangered.
Similar concerns have also been raised by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).
Earlier this year the Kenyan government renewed a six-month ban on trawling in Kenyan territorial waters to safeguard endangered species and local fish breeding grounds.