About the TSA
Transforming passion for turtles into effective conservation through global networks of living collections and range country actions.
The IUCN Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) organized in 2001 in response to the Asian Turtle Crisis. It was founded on the belief that captive populations had a role to play in the survival of Asia’s endangered chelonian fauna, and that multiple and diverse organizations and individuals would be needed to help stem the tide of extinction.
Defined as an IUCN Partnership Alliance for Sustainable Captive Management of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises, the TSA seeks to preserve options for the recovery of wild populations. It is the only conservation organization in the world that is dedicated solely to preventing turtle extinctions.
The TSA is a task force of the IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group (TFTSG) and is a global partnership of private individuals, zoos, aquariums, field biologists, and researchers who have joined together to help conserve threatened and endangered species of tortoises and freshwater turtles.
The TSA has become an effective organization for mobilizing conservation actions that impact the global turtle crisis and building capacity in range country programs, particularly those with a captive component and that emphasize species ranked critically endangered (CR) by the IUCN Red List.
The TSA has rapidly become recognized as a global force for turtle conservation and is now expanding its network to include range country programs that include a captive component. Recognizing that the battle to save turtle species will be won or lost in the country where they naturally occur, the TSA is now working with a range of rescue centers, captive breeding facilities, and headstart operations in Malaysia, Myanmar, India, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Madagascar and Mexico.
Contacts for all divisions can be found on the page devoted to the Steering Committee.
Questions focusing on TSA-USA please send inquiries to:
Rick Hudson or Dwight Lawson
