The sea turtle trade has served as the traditional source of income for some Indonesians. Many poachers often sell the eggs, skin, fat, bones and meat of marine turtles to traders or slaughter houses and the money from this sale serves as the poachers’ primary form of livelihood. In Irian Jaya, the local egg collectors mark the sea turtles’ nest by placing a stick upright in the sand. They then return to the marked regions to dig up the nest and retrieve all the sea turtle eggs. The eggs are then sold to passing traders who mainly come from Sorong. The eggs are sold for 100 Rupiah (US$ 0.05) each and the eggs are later sold for 5-10 times this price by traders. While the locals express concern over the decline in nesting population in Irian Jaya, the egg collectors still do not practise restraint in the number of sea turtle eggs they retrieve from the nesting grounds (Betz & Welch, 2001).

Credit: AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati

The uncontrolled exploitation of sea turtle eggs can be explained by the tragedy of commons, a concept conceived by Hardin. Each individual is motivated by self-interest and they thus behave in ways that will serve to benefit them. As such, each individual gains financially by retrieving and selling as many sea turtle eggs as they can find since the individual sees little harm in their actions when the resource is large and individual impact on the resource is viewed as comparatively small.