Updated global conservation status and priorities for marine turtles

Assessing conservation status and pursuing applicable management priorities for marine megafauna across multiple scales pose significant challenges. Because marine turtles exemplify these challenges, the IUCN Marine Turtle Specialist Group (MTSG) developed the ‘conservation priorities portfolio’ (CPP) framework in 2011 to evaluate population risk and threats for regional management units (RMUs). Here, the MTSG updated the 2011 CPP framework through an inclusive assessment process. Expert elicitation results involving 145 individuals from 50 countries suggested that marine turtle conservation status appears to be improving, but significant challenges remain. Since the previous assessment, long-term abundance trends increased on average, and threat impact scores improved for nearly twice as many RMUs (53%) as worsened (28%) (≥ 10% threshold for changes in numeric scores). While expert-assessed threat impacts have generally decreased, fisheries bycatch remains the highest scored threat across regions and species. Risk-Threat categories improved for most (54%) RMUs. Over 40% of RMUs were scored as Low Risk-Low Threats, eight of which were green turtles Chelonia mydas. Less than 20% of RMUs were scored as High Risk-High Threats, four of which were leatherback turtles Dermochelys coriacea. Most High Risk-High Threats RMUs were in the Pacific Ocean, while most Low Risk-Low Threats RMUs were in the Atlantic Ocean. Eleven RMUs were evaluated as critical data needs. Our results—also provided through an interactive data dashboard—underscore the importance of context-specific planning to effectively target limited conservation resources. Future assessments should further prioritize inclusion of under-represented topics, researchers, and regions to better address multi-faceted conservation challenges.