The green turtle has been listed as a protected species under the 1990 Natural Resources Conservation Law. The law stipulates that anyone caught trading green sea turtles faces up to five years in prison and 100 million rupiah ($11,000) in fines. Also, under the 1999 Government Regulation Number 7, all species of sea turtles are protected.

Credit: thyblackman.com

Despite the enactment of conservation law, the sea turtle trade is still thriving in Bali (Jensen, 2009) and in the Berau marine conservation area off East Kalimantan due to poor law enforcement (Mattangkilang , 2012). This suggests that while conservation laws have been passed to protect sea turtles in Indonesia, the laws serve little use in ending the illegal trade of sea turtles. For laws to be effective, it needs to be strictly enforced. This will then encourage the public to behave in the public interest as acting according to what the law mandates would make it to be in each individual’s personal best interests- avoiding the consequences of violating the law (Gardner & Stern, 2002). However, this is not seen in Indonesia due to presence of corrupted government officials. At the lower level, the police are prone to accepting bribes to overlook breaches of conservation laws. Similarly, at the higher level, politicians accept campaign contributions and turn a blind eye when laws are flouted (Nakad, 2009). These law enforcement agents might not believe in the cause of protecting and conserving sea turtles and this would affect their attitude towards enforcing relevant laws. As such, some law enforcement agents might be indifferent to the cause, making the lure of easy money from accepting bribes hard to resist. Moreover, in a large country like Indonesia where there are diverse religions, cultures, languages and value, it is challenging to coordinate or put in place an efficient and effective monitoring and enforcement system (Jensen, 2009).