Sharon Guynup – With an evolutionary history of more than 200 million years, turtles and tortoises have outlived dinosaurs and persisted on the planet despite mass extinction events. But around the turn of the 21st century, chelonian numbers in Southeast Asia dropped so dramatically that it sparked what biologists called the "Asian turtle crisis."
With a growing middle class in China, turtle meat was no longer a delicacy savored on special occasions; it became a staple meal, and turtle numbers plummeted. Coupled with disappearing and polluted habitats, the demand for these aquatic reptiles threatens to wipe out more than half of the world's tortoise and turtle species.
Yet, harvest and trade continue in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is a prominent exporter, with four of its 39 species targeted for meat. The vulnerable Asiatic softshell turtle (Amyda cartilaginea), the endangered Southeast Asian box turtle (Cuora amboinensis), the Asian leaf turtle (Cyclemys dentata) and the Malayan softshell turtle (Dogania subplana) fill the country's yearly harvest quota of nearly 50,000 turtles.
This legal trade purportedly provides sustainable, reliable income for those who capture and sell them. However, wildlife trade researcher Vincent Nijman and his colleagues refute this claim in a study published in the journal Discover Animals. They compared turtle collectors' estimated income from the legal meat trade with minimum wage work across different Indonesian provinces to see if it really provided adequate income – and to determine whether traders needed to illegally trade turtles to make it a profitable business.
"We were looking for some support for the idea that, indeed, wildlife trade contributes to livelihoods," Nijman, who teaches at the U.K.'s Oxford Brookes University, told Mongabay.
All four legally traded turtle species can only be sold internationally with permits, as they're regulated under CITES, the international wildlife trade treaty. Collectors also need a license to collect turtles within Indonesia; each province sets its own limits.
To estimate how many people could earn a minimum wage by collecting and harvesting turtles, the researchers calculated a collector's annual income by multiplying the market price of a turtle by the number of turtles allowed to be harvested across 27 provinces between 2016 and 2022. They then compared that with the provincial minimum wage recommended by the government.
Legal trade can't provide sustainable livelihoods, analysis shows
The study found that relatively few people could make a comfortable living as turtle collectors. With an annual legal quota of nearly 50,000 freshwater turtles and tortoises selling for anywhere from $1.10 to $20 each, the researchers estimate that legal trade could support somewhere between 241 and 306 collectors with a subsistence minimum wage income. That number dropped to 161-204 collectors if they were to earn a livable wage, which is about one-and-a-half times the minimum wage.
These are liberal estimates, the researchers say, and exclude expenses: permits, transportation, equipment and other costs of doing business.
"The only way you can get more people to make a minimum wage out of it is ... to allow a higher number of turtles [to] be collected in the provinces with the lowest minimum wage," Nijman said. But with turtle populations already declining, the quota of 50,000 is already the upper limit for sustainable management, and there's little wiggle room, he added.
The researchers also estimated the income if collectors pulled turtles from the wild only during a few months of the year or sold an odd turtle they came across, supplying about 10% of their yearly income. They found the trade can support only about 2,400-3,000 people in a country of 285 million.
The study found that the Bornean provinces of North and East Kalimantan supported the most collectors – 41 – and just one or two people earned a minimum wage in seven other provinces.
"Wild-caught turtle trade is not sustainable, and therefore it doesn't make sense to promote it as a livelihood issue," said study co-author Chris Shepherd, who was with the Monitor Conservation Research Society in Canada when the study was published, and is now at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Obviously, livelihoods are incredibly important but promoting the trade in a group of rapidly declining, yet slowly reproducing species is just going to continue the decline."
The only way the turtle trade can provide more livelihoods is by illegal harvest: violating legal limits. In Indonesia, wildlife such as songbirds and tokay geckos are often sold in excess of legal quotas, and others, including forest birds and leopards, are traded illegally. The researchers posit that this might be the case with turtles, too, as they've witnessed a massive amount of black market trade in some species – up to 90%.
But even with illegal harvests, only about 1,500 to 3,000 people (or 5-10 people per million) could earn a minimum wage pulling turtles from the wild. For the turtles, though, such a shift could be devastating.
In 2023, taxonomists determined that the Southeast Asian box turtle is not a single species, but comprises six species and subspecies, including Indonesia's critically endangered Palu box turtle (Cuora amboinensis aurantiae).
"With the recognition of the Palu box turtle as a distinct, critically endangered subspecies, this demands a swift action to revise or suspend the harvest quotas before irreversible losses occur to this particular animal," Jordan Gray from the Turtle Survival Alliance, who wasn't involved in the study, told Mongabay.
The researchers urge Indonesian authorities to enforce quotas to curb the illegal trade. These reptiles live long lives and reproduce slowly, making it difficult for populations to recover after steep declines. As opportunistic omnivores, they act as nature's cleanup crew, scavenging dead animals and keeping rivers and streams clean.
Gray, who also serves as a member of the Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group at the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, notes that "There's clear evidence that the trade is neither economically efficient or ecologically sustainable. And so Indonesia, using this information, has the opportunity here to reassess their harvest quotas or potential bans." He suggested that Indonesian authorities provide alternative livelihood options to those who are dependent on this trade to survive.
"Livelihood solutions should be sustainable," Shepherd said. "Wild-caught turtle trade is not sustainable, and therefore it doesn't make sense to promote it as a livelihood issue."
[Spoorthy Raman is a staff writer at Mongabay, covering all things wild with a special focus on lesser-known wildlife, the wildlife trade, and environmental crime.]
Citations
Blanck, T., Gaillard, D., Protiva, T., Wheatley, M., Shi, H., Liu, L.,... Anders, B. (2023). A taxonomic hide and seek: Phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationships in the Southeast Asian box turtle, Cuora amboinensis (Riche in Daudin, 1801). Russian Journal of Herpetology, 30(6-S), 1-52. doi:10.30906/1026-2296-2023-30-6-s-1-52
Roe, D., Dickman, A., Kock, R., Milner-Gulland, E., Rihoy, E., & Sas-Rolfes, M. (2020). Beyond banning wildlife trade: COVID-19, conservation and development. World Development, 136, 105121. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105121
Nijman, V., & Shepherd, C. R. (2025). Legal freshwater turtle meat trade in Indonesia only marginally contributes to collectors' livelihoods. Discover Animals, 2(1). doi:10.1007/s44338-025-00062-1
Nijman, V., Morcatty, T. Q., Feddema, K., Campera, M., & Nekaris, K. A. I. (2022). Disentangling the legal and illegal wildlife trade – Insights from Indonesian wildlife market surveys. Animals, 12(5), 628. doi:10.3390/ani12050628
Nijman, V., & Shepherd, C. R. (2022). Trade in Southeast Asian box turtles from Indonesia: Legality, livelihoods, sustainability and overexploitation. Diversity, 14(11), 970. doi:10.3390/d14110970