TURTLE ISLAND RESTORATION NETWORK

Sea Turtle Restoration Project: Through our Sustainable Fisheries Solutions Program, we are working to save the critically endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtle, which is facing imminent extinction from industrial longline hooks and gillnet fishing fleets. These unsustainable fishing techniques also threaten a host of additional marine species, including Hawaiian monk seals, false killer whales, black-footed albatross, white marlin, and sharks. In Costa Rica and Nicaragua, we are training local community members to protect nesting beaches and eggs, and we are working for enforcement of existing legal protections internationally through grassroots activism and strategic litigation. In Texas, we are educating teachers, students, and the general public about the need to protect sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico, and we are advocating for a permanent Marine Reserve to protect the endangered, but recovering, Kemp's ridley sea turtle. GotMercury.Org: Through our public health campaign, we are working to alert consumers about the threats from toxic mercury contamination in swordfish, tuna, shark, and other seafood. Through strategic litigation, we have required supermarkets in California to post warning signs at points of purchase, and we have convinced major supermarket chains to post advisories nationally. We are pressuring the federal government to take stronger measures to protect the public from mercury-contaminated seafood. Our online mercury-in-seafood calculator, www.GotMercury.org, allows individuals to assess their risk, based on their own personal habitats of seafood consumption. Salmon Protection and Watershed Network: In California, we are working to protect and restore endangered coho salmon and the critical creekside habitats on which we all depend. We are rescuing baby salmon that become stranded in drying pools, while at the same time, we are building rain gardens to replenish the water table. We are restoring native, riparian vegetation to decrease runoff, sedimentation, and pollution, and we are training volunteers to assist in scientific research needed to plan recovery efforts. Our citizen-based monitoring teams are also conducting water quality tests, spawning surveys, and habitat assessments. This campaign insures a local commitment to the future health of local watersheds, through the direct involvement of community volunteers.

In a key victory, we successfully stopped the re-opening of drift gillnet fishing in the Leatherback Conservation Area off the California and Oregon Coasts. This time-area closure protects endangered leatherback sea turtles while they migrate and feed in these rich waters each year from August through November. Despite the National Marine Fisheries Service?s (NMFS) decision in June 2007 to deny the issuance of an exempted permit which would have allowed up to thirty drift gillnet vessels back into this protected area, the drift gillnet fishery continued to press for the permit. We attended meetings of the PFMC to advocate against the proposals, generated more than 6,000 public comments to the PFMC letting them know that the public opposes expanding destructive fisheries on the US West Coast into the present Leatherback Conservation Area, formed a coalition of 45 environmental, fishing and animal welfare organizations in support, and coordinated 224 scientists from 39 countries to sign a letter to the PFMC opposing the rollbacks. Our media work resulted in a front-page story in the San Francisco Chronicle and stories and op-eds in other papers and media outlets. As a result of all this pressure, the 2007 fishing season closed without the proposed permit being issued by NMFS. Our coalition?s actions and protests also delayed an application by a longline fisherman to operate in the Leatherback Conservation Area. In December 2007 this fisherman withdrew his application as he realized he would not be able to fish in the season he was applying for, thus protecting the LCA for another year. We anticipate that this fisherman will continue to pursue a reopening of the Leatherback Conservation Area to longlining in 2008 and we will maintain pressure against any such proposal.

<p><strong>GotMercury.org </strong>is a key project in TIRN&#8217;s work to protect the environment and the public from mercury. Swordfish, tuna and shark are high in toxic methylmercury; and these same fisheries harm and kill sea turtles and other marine wildlife as bycatch. Because federal and state public health agencies are not doing enough to raise public awareness and protect the public from mercury, we developed www.gotmercury.org.&nbsp;This online tool takes the mystery out of which seafood is safe to eat with regard to the presence of mercury in certain species of seafood and allows consumers to make informed choices about eating seafood. The project also conducts public outreach, monitoring of restaurant and supermarkets for mercury-in-seafood warning signs, and policy and regulation reform.</p>

<strong>SPAWN,</strong> the Salmon Protection And Watershed Network, works to protect endangered salmon in the Lagunitas Watershed in West Marin County, and the environment on which we all depend. SPAWN uses a multi-faceted approach to accomplish our mission including grassroots action, habitat restoration, policy development, research and monitoring, citizen training, environmental education, strategic litigation, and collaboration with other organizations and agencies.