Colombia

• Decreto Nº 622 of 1977, establishing the National Parks system, prohibits fishing in areas that are important for turtles, either as nesting or foraging zones or migration routes. These areas coincide with areas designated as national parks, such as Corales del Rosario and San Bernardo, Tayrona, Sanquianga, Gorgona, Ensenada de Utría and certain areas in San Andrés and Providencia (Seaflower Biosphere Reserve).

• Decreto Nº 1608 of 1978, which established regulations for the Natural Resources Code (Código Nacional de los Recursos Naturales y Protección del Medio Ambiente, Decreto Nº 2811 of 1974), prohibits the capture and commercial use of individuals and products of wild fauna, including the collection of eggs or neonates and the destruction or alteration of wildlife breeding areas.

• Decreto Nº 1681 of 1978 regulates the exploitation of living aquatic resources such as through capture, extraction or collection. Article 149 of this law indirectly protects marine turtle foraging areas.

• Ley Nº 17 of 1981, through which Colombia ratified CITES, prohibits the export and import of marine turtles and their products.

• Acuerdo Nº 021 of 1991, issued by INDERENA, establishes specific protection measures for all marine turtle species, as well as for nesting beaches and foraging areas.

• Resolución Nº 108 of 1992, issued by the Instituto Nacional Para la Pesca y Acuicultura (INPA—the National Institute for Fishing and Aquaculture), prohibits the exploitation of marine turtles incidentally captured in shrimp trawls and requires the use of turtle excluder devices (TEDs) throughout the Colombian Caribbean.

• Resolución Nº 157 of 15 March 1993, issued by INPA, requires the use of TEDs by the shrimp trawl fleet operating in the Colombian Caribbean. This resolution was subsequently revised by Resolución Nº 148 of 1994, which requires the use of a hard-type TED.

• Resolución Nº 2879 of 21 November 1995, issued by the CAR of Guajira, the Corporación Autónoma Regional de La Guajira (CORPOGUAJIRA—the Autonomous Regional Corporation for Guajira), establishes a regional prohibition on the exploitation of marine turtles.

• Resolución Nº 107 of 15 February 1996, issued by INPA, requires the use of TEDs by the shrimp fleet operating on the Pacific Coast.

• Resolución Nº 68 of 1999 amends Resoluciones Nº 148 and Nº 157 to broaden the use of TEDs and regulates other materials used in their construction.

• Ley Nº 599 of 2000 is the current Penal Code (Código penal).

Although this body of legislation is extensive, Ceballos (2002) notes that its implementation is deficient, as there are insufficient financial and logistical resources to ensure compliance and enforce the laws and, in many instances, the laws are inconsistent with the economic and social realities in the different coastal zones. The blanket ban on the take and commercialization of wildlife adopted through Decreto Nº 1608 in 1978, for example, has been recognized to have been unrealistic and over-simplistic and is considered anachronistic. It is in the process of revision, but no date has been set for adoption of eventual revisions.

More importantly, it should be noted that subsistence fishing of marine turtles is permitted by law in Colombia. Ley de Pesca Nº 13 of 1990 (the General Fishing Law) stipulates, in Article 47, that subsistence fishing, defined as that undertaken without intent to profit and for providing food for the fisher and his family, is unrestricted throughout national territory (Córdoba et al., 2002). This definition would appear to render illegal the commercial use of products from marine turtles taken in a subsistence fishery and, thus, to provide a major loophole for a take of marine turtles that would be more appropriately characterized as artisanal (which results in commercialization of the products) and which would be affected by protective legislation. However, Ceballos (in litt., 27 February 2004) cautions that there may be a difference of interpretation on this and that commercial use of marine turtles at the local level, such as to purchase foodstuffs for one’s family, may be considered part of a “subsistence take”.