WASHINGTON—It's a scene that scientists say is all too common: A commercial fishing boat pulls in a net full of shrimp or tuna and finds a loggerhead sea turtle mixed in with the catch.

Biologists like Matthew Godfrey say one or two such takings can happen every day among fishing fleets off the Southeast coast. Those numbers can add up to thousands annually for a turtle species that has traveled the oceans for 200 million years but now faces a growing array of threats.

Godfrey is among the authors of the latest federal report on loggerheads that says most groups of the ancient reptile are at risk of extinction -- in large part due to increased commercial fishing.

The study, released last month, predicted broad population declines across the globe in the coming years, including in a nesting area along the southeastern United States that is one of the world's largest.

"Unfortunately, a lot of times the target fish habitat and the turtle habitat overlap," said Godfrey, of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. "The turtles are air breathers, so they need to get to the surface, but if they're tangled up in the net, they can't get to the surface, and they essentially drown."

Loggerheads have been listed as a threatened species since 1978. This latest report puts new pressure on the government to upgrade their status to endangered and further restrict commercial fisheries.

But even the increased awareness that an endangered listing would bring might not save the turtles, which migrate thousands of miles through the sea.

Meaningful protections require broad global cooperation given the turtles' far-flung travels. Fishing operators already are chafing under regulations aimed at protecting the animals, and further restrictions could draw strong opposition and fresh concerns about hurting coastal economies.

"These trends are very difficult to reverse. It's like turning a big battleship," said Blair Witherington, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who helped write the report. "We really ought to be doing it now."

The report was commissioned by the National Marine Fisheries Service as a result of petitions from environmental groups, who say the government is moving too slowly to protect loggerheads and have sued to force stronger actions. Many of the study's authors work for the federal agencies that will decide whether to change its status to endangered.

For the first time, the study called for dividing loggerhead populations into nine distinct global populations, a potentially key recommendation that would allow each to be studied and protected as a separate species.

St. Paul - When there's $70 million in funds to spend on conservation and habitat, time spent discussing the definitions of three words - protect, restore, and enhance - might seem a waste.

Not so, according to those who say properly defining them is a necessary part of ensuring funds created by the constitutional amendment voters approved last fall go where they're intended.

The terms were set to be discussed at a Tuesday meeting of the House committee - the Cultural and Outdoor Resources Finance Division - that oversees the dedicated funds.

Some sportsmen are concerned about definitions of the words that were part of legislation passed last year - specifically, how they compare to definitions the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council approved last January, early in the process of developing its first set of funding recommendations.

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"The No. 1 issue is always diversion of the money," said Garry Leaf, executive director of Sportsmen for Change. "What these definitions do is begin to expand what had been a decade's worth of work to areas that were unintended."

The definitions the L-SOHC used in arriving at its funding recommendations, and that it will use in making its next set of recommendations, are these:

� Restore: action to bring a habitat back to a former state of sustaining fish, game or wildlife, with an ultimate goal of restoring habitat to a desired conservation condition.

� Protect: action to maintain the ability of habitat and related natural systems to sustain fish, game or wildlife through acquisition of fee title or conservation easements.

� Enhance: action to increase the ability of habitat and related natural systems to sustain and improve fish, game or wildlife in an ecologically sound manner.

The definitions approved by lawmakers and that now are in state law read like this:

Online booking agency delivers economy-class ticket for first-class price

(CNN) -- Thursday is "Chinese night" at the Hotel Silk Road in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province.

Hungry guests sip cans of Coke and nonalcoholic beer and pick at a buffet that includes General Tsao's chicken, egg drop soup and slices of sweet green melon grown in nearby fields.

When a vegetarian diner arrives, the hotel's Japanese owner, Hiromi Yasui, runs back to the kitchen to whip up a dish of spinach, garlic and steamed rice.

"This is the most clean kitchen in Bamiyan," she boasts in heavily accented English, as she directs her staff of Afghan assistants in fluent Dari. Yasui proudly points to an electric dishwasher, perhaps the only one of its kind in this battle-scarred Afghan province.

The Hotel Silk Road has been open for less than two years. The green concrete walls of this compound jar somewhat with the brown, mud brick architecture of Bamiyan Valley. But the hotel is probably the largest foreign private investment in Bamiyan's fledgling tourism industry since the overthrow of the Taliban eight years ago. Photo See photos of the Bamiyan Province »

Aid workers say tourism is one of the greatest economic hopes for reviving this isolated, yet visually -- and archaeologically -- stunning part of Afghanistan, a region that has seen little infrastructure development over the last eight years, even though Bamiyan is one of the safest parts of the country. Video Tour the Bamiyan Valley's caves »

"The natural resources and cultural resources here are probably the single best place for economic development to happen, around revitalizing the tourism industry here," says Bob Thelen, the representative for the Aga Khan Development Network in Bamiyan. The nonprofit organization has been working with the government of New Zealand to distribute $1.2 million over a three-year period to develop eco-tourism as an industry in Bamiyan.

Bamiyan first attracted widespread international attention in 2001, when Taliban militants spent weeks blowing up two giant statues of Buddha. For more than 1,500 years, these colossal figures -- one was 53 meters (174 feet) high, the other 35 meters (115 feet) -- stood like sentries overlooking this alpine valley. Today, the massive caves where the Buddhas once stood are huge, empty pockets carved into cliffs that dominate the countryside.