Island and Ocean Ecosystems
Turtle Research and Monitoring Database System (TREDS) training is underway in Nadi, Fiji. This training is funded by the Western Pacific Regional Management Fishery Council based in Hawaii. The training will continue until Friday 30 May.

The purpose of this workshop is to continue to support Pacific island countries and territories - especially Tonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea and American Samoa - to manage their marine turtle data by training them in the use of TREDS. Fiji (Department of Fisheries, Mamanuca Environment Society and Wildlife Conservation Society) is also attending the training.

treds

TREDS is a system that has good data entry and reporting features and is user‐friendly. Users can easily generate reports of national turtle populations and can relate these to the master database at SPREP. These quick reports help SPREP member countries to formulate informed conservation measures for the protection of marine turtles at both national and regional levels.

In the last 20 years, concern for turtle conservation has grown in the region with an increasing number of initiatives being undertaken at local, national and regional levels. This has resulted in the establishment of SPREP's Regional Marine Turtle Tagging Programme and an associated active network of government, community and NGO agencies working together for turtle conservation and recovery.

Marine turtles are a culturally important and shared resource of Pacific island peoples. The six species of turtles found in the region are all currently listed as either critically endangered, endangered or data deficient under the IUCN red list.

For more information, please contact Catherine Siota.