An Atlas of Global Sea Turtle Status 1.0

The sea turtle conservation community has made remarkable strides in global-scale priority setting in recent decades thanks to the collective efforts of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), universities, and local communities. Nothing highlights this progress better than the paper, “Updated Global Conservation Status and Priorities for Marine Turtles,” published in the journal Endangered Species Research in early 2025, an effort that was led by the IUCN Marine Turtle Specialist Group (MTSG), the State of the World’s Sea Turtles (SWOT) program, and the thousands of people these networks represent. Known as CPP (short for the Conservation Priorities Portfolio version 2.0), that peer-reviewed paper is the culmination of more than two decades of data compilation and analysis, strategic thinking and planning, countless meetings (live and online), and prolonged and sometimes heated discussions among hundreds of sea turtle conservationists from dozens of countries.

A green turtle swims among the roots of mangrove trees in the Bahamas. Green turtles had the lowest overall risk and threat scores of all the species assessed by CPP. © Olivier Clement/Ocean Image Bank/Mangrove Photography Awards

History

At the turn of the 21st century, many MTSG members were frustrated by the primary tool of the day for prioritizing sea turtle conservation: the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. That global inventory, which uses complex criteria to calculate extinction risk, is designed to apply universally to all species, from lichens to flowering plants, invertebrates, fish, mammals, and reptiles. It works quite well for species such as black-footed ferrets (which has a total population of less than 500, a three to six year life span, and lives on about 100 square miles of protected lands in the United States), but it was far from ideal for sea turtles. A single sea turtle species can range over more than 40 million square miles of ocean, individuals live for 70 to 80 years, and even the most basic population data (e.g., how many are there?) can only be inferred by tallying nesting females. Moreover, the Red List does not explicitly incorporate threats, making it less valuable as a tool to guide conservation actions. Thus, the consensus among sea turtle conservationists was that more effective ways were needed to assess the status of sea turtles.

That crisis of confidence reached its apex in the early 2000s. The most outspoken critic was MTSG member Nicholas Mrosovsky (1942–2017), whose 2003 book, Predicting Extinction: Fundamental Flaws in IUCN‘s Red List System, Exemplified by the Case of Sea Turtles, laid bare many of the shortcomings of the existing system. Seeking to find a better way, the MTSG cochairs launched a series of regular gatherings of experts.

These gatherings, called Burning Issues (BI) workshops, were designed to improve priority setting for sea turtles beyond the confines of the Red List system. Their goal was to

. . . use the best available science to build consensus among experts on priority sea turtle populations, critical issues, and recommended actions in support of the urgent on-the-ground conservation actions needed to prevent sea turtle extinctions.

The many products of these workshops included an initial list of priority global turtle populations based on expert opinion (BI-1, 2003); the “5 Hazards to Sea Turtles” (BI-2, 2005); a list of “Key Unsolved Mysteries” (BI-3, 2006); and the first regional management units (RMUs) and CPP (BI-4, BI-5, and BI-6, 2008– 2010). Those latter products (RMUs and CPP) were ultimately published as peer-reviewed articles in 2010 and 2011 and changed the game for how the global conservation community addresses priority setting for sea turtles.

BI-7 (2020–2025) was intended to be another in-person expert workshop in June 2020, at which attendees would revisit and improve RMUs and CPP after a decade hiatus. But COVID-19 put the project on hold. After a mental and technological reset, the BI-7 process began anew as an online activity, which ultimately allowed for the engagement of more than 150 specialists, far more than would have been able to attend in person. The number of contributors, the technological platform, and the methodical approach to achieve consensus added greatly to the validity and quality of the results of both, and the RMU and CPP version 2.0 products were again published in peer-reviewed journals in 2023 and 2025, respectively.

The SWOT program and its network of hundreds of data contributors were also there from the start (2003), working in parallel to create the database needed to make such priority setting possible. An Atlas of Global Sea Turtle Status was among the earliest dreams of the SWOT founders—a useful, and usable, up-to-date guide to the state of the world’s sea turtles that would help researchers, donors, policymakers, and conservationists everywhere know where to invest resources to achieve the best results for sea turtle conservation.

Thus, it is with great pride that we present this dream-come-true to the world for the first time.

Regional Management Units

Although there are only seven recognized sea turtle species, dozens of independent and irreplaceable subpopulations merit conservation attention. For example, a Caribbean green turtle looks and acts differently from its eastern or western Pacific counterpart, fulfilling entirely different ecological roles in different geographies, despite belonging to a single species (Chelonia mydas). By the mid-2000s, after decades of tagging, tracking, genetics, and at-sea studies, the global sea turtle community was beginning to recognize many of these differences. Also, researchers increasingly recognized that sea turtle conservation cannot be effectively managed on a global scale without considering the unique ecological and conservation characteristics of these individual subpopulations.

To solve these complex challenges, the MTSG developed regional management units (RMUs), which incorporate distribution and genetic data and expert knowledge to define demographically distinct sea turtle subpopulations. Each of the 48 individual RMUs encompasses the nesting sites, foraging areas, and migratory pathways of a discrete sea turtle subpopulation. Although the RMUs of a single species sometimes overlap geographically, they typically do not overlap demographically (see “Global Status of Sea Turtle RMUs by Species”). Yet among sea turtle species, there is substantial geographic overlap in RMUs, allowing conservation planners to identify areas in which threat reduction efforts could benefit multiple RMUs simultaneously. Moreover, the process of defining RMUs illuminates gaps in knowledge and thereby serves as a crucial tool for defining future research priorities.

In short, RMUs are unified, standardized units that are publicly available for anyone who wants to better understand and conserve sea turtles at both the local and regional scales. They are a new nontaxonomic standard for subdividing wideranging sea turtles for conservation planning, and they were used as the basis for CPP in both 2011 and 2025. In addition, the MTSG is gradually completing Red List assessments of every RMU to augment the global species-level assessments, thereby addressing one of Nicholas Mrosovsky’s most important concerns from decades ago.

Conservation Priorities Portfolio

The CPP article (BI-7, 2025) prioritizes global sea turtle research and conservation needs by assessing the threats, risks, and data needs facing each of the 48 RMUs. It is based on the best available scientific data and expert knowledge about sea turtles, with input from more than 150 experts in 50 countries. The CPP framework represents not only the current conservation status and priorities for each RMU, but also what is driving that status (e.g., population size and abundance), as well as what most threatens the RMU and what knowledge gaps exist. To access the peer-reviewed CPP article, visit the atlas references page.

The SWOT Global Atlas

This first-ever attempt at a global atlas of sea turtle status is based on the comprehensive, data-driven frameworks of RMUs and CPP, with additional narrative context derived from the articles and maps included in the past 19 volumes of the SWOT Report (2006–2024) and other sources. Those products represent the work of hundreds of people and partners over more than two decades (see “Authors of a Revolution”). Their work and contributions provide new and unparalleled insights into the status and conservation needs of sea turtles globally in 2025. The following are some important things to know as you read this Atlas, absorb its contents, and ponder how you will put it to use for improving sea turtle status and ocean health:

Regional organization: Most conservationists work in a specific place, be it an ocean basin, a country, or just a single piece of coastline, and most conservation investments are made at similar scales. As such, the Atlas is organized by regions, which were designed to present and discuss RMUs and CPP data in manageable ways. Defining the regions was surprisingly difficult, given the spatial overlap of RMUs and the fact that many RMUs span very large geographic areas. Ultimately, the editors grouped RMUs into six regions that take into account both the location of the RMUs’ primary nesting sites and their overall distribution. Each of the six regions is home to eight RMUs. The regions may not match traditional understandings of how the planet and its turtle populations have been subdivided.
Up-to-date (for now): Given the speed of global change, the Atlas represents a snapshot based on the best available information in early 2025. As with all such tools and the information, maps, and data presented in them, it is a work in progress that will require regular updating to remain useful. Hence, we have called it An Atlas of Global Sea Turtle Status 1.0. It is our express intent that the global conservation community will put it to the test and find ways to continually improve it over time.
Incomplete: It is impossible to do justice to the full breadth of sea turtle research and conservation history and efforts throughout the world in this relatively short publication. Many facts, stories, and projects simply could not be included because of space limitations. This Atlas should therefore serve as a jumping-off point for further investigation.
The CPP digital dashboard: To help people understand and explore the wealth of information contained in CPP and presented in the Atlas, we created an online dashboard that allows users to explore the data in greater depth (www.SeaTurtleStatus.org/cpp-dashboard).

Use This Tool!

Despite substantial improvements in the status of sea turtle populations globally over recent decades, there is still much to be learned about sea turtle conservation. Many successful efforts have helped to support healthy RMUs, and stubborn challenges have been identified that may require more attention. The point and strength of the CPP is that it is a framework that can be used, reused, and improved over time. We hope that the Atlas will be the public interface to CPP results and a useful guide for the global conservation community. By providing a clear, evidencebased overview of the status of sea turtles and the threats they face, the Atlas can help to answer important questions, such as “What’s working and why?,” “Where do we begin?,” and “How can we make the best use of limited resources?”

Atlas User Guide

Before exploring the regional articles, we recommend taking a look at the “User Guide for This Atlas”, which defines important terms and symbols and explains how to interpret the maps and figures.