



This intergovernmental treaty promotes the protection, conservation, and recovery of sea turtles and their habitats.
The Inter-American Convention (IAC) for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the legal framework for countries in the Americas and the Caribbean to take actions for the benefit of sea turtles.
The IAC promotes the protection, conservation, and recovery of sea turtles and the habitats they depend on, based on the best available data and the environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural characteristics of the IAC’s parties.
Six sea turtle species are protected under the IAC:
The 15 contracting parties to the IAC are:
With the IAC, the parties make a binding commitment to:
The treaty applies to all of the parties’ territorial waters and flagged vessels. It covers the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, including the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
Marine turtle conservation is critical to biodiversity.
Several turtle species play important roles in the ecosystems they inhabit. For instance, hawksbill turtles only eat specific varieties of coral sponges, allowing rarer species to become established and promoting a healthy, diverse coral reef ecosystem. Green turtles are the only herbivorous marine turtles, transfer nutrients from nutrient-rich areas like sea grass beds to nutrient-poor ecosystems like nesting beaches.
Because of their importance and quickly falling populations, all six species of sea turtle found in U.S. waters are listed under the Endangered Species Act as either threatened or endangered. (Some species are listed differently in different areas of their range.) But sea turtles are highly migratory, and no single country can protect them alone.
Therefore, sea turtles are given protection at the international level. All six species protected under the IAC are also listed:
The IAC was developed through international negotiating sessions and was opened for signature on December 1, 1996. Upon the signature of the eighth state in 2001, the treaty entered into force. It is open for accession by any state in the Americas and the Caribbean. The Convention operates through biennial Conferences of the Parties, during which member states discuss ongoing (and propose new) joint work to protect and conserve sea turtles. Among the measures encouraged by the Convention are:
While the IAC is a stand-alone legal instrument, it works with many other international environmental agreements:
The success of the IAC also depends on a wide range of actors, including the academic community, nongovernmental organizations, local stakeholders, and all levels of government and civil society.