Posted on March, 21 2018

By Ian Campbell Manager, WWF Shark and Ray Initiative, Sharks: Restoring the Balance, WWF-Pacific.

While CITES is not the ‘silver bullet’ that will save all sharks and rays from extinction, it certainly can provide a driver to stimulate conservation efforts.

FOR those following shark and ray conservation issues, 2013 was viewed as a landmark year, as species closely associated with commercial fishing operations were incorporated into Appendix II of the CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). These landmark listings for oceanic whitetip sharks, hammerhead sharks, porbeagle sharks, and manta rays obligated countries to ensure that any international trade in these species was conducted in a sustainable way, without causing significant declines in their populations.

In the next CITES meeting in 2016, more commercially exploited species (thresher sharks, silky sharks, and all mobula rays) were included in Appendix II, increasing the management responsibilities on countries to ensure international trade did not adversely affect populations. Getting the species listed in the convention was only the first step, and, as with all conservation issues, implementation of commitments is a critical step.

To ensure countries meet their CITES obligations, any nation that wants to export listed species of sharks and rays needs to conduct a non-detriment finding, or NDF. An NDF is basically a scientific assessment that ensures the sharks and rays caught were done so legally, and without significantly depleting the populations. As expected, to undertake an NDF, a lot of information is required on the species and the commercial fishing operations, and information is sometimes scarce for sharks and rays.

In 2014, a report led by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Shark Specialist Group reviewed the information available for over a thousand different species of sharks and rays, and their assessment determined that almost a quarter of all species faced an increased threat of extinction.
 

‘Data deficient’

While this is concerning in itself, the same report also found that almost half of all species of sharks and rays are classed as “data deficient.” This means that almost nothing is known about their population levels or whether they are stable. This report looked at global trends, with the likelihood that even less is known at the national level in countries with developing economies and under-capacity fisheries agencies. To conduct a valid NDF for CITES-listed species, a lot more information will be required to ensure these analyses are valid. While CITES does play an important role in regulating the international trade of listed species, it is only one component of issues that must be addressed to improve the conservation status of sharks and rays.

The Coral Triangle is a key region for sharks and rays, both in terms of countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, with large commercial fishing fleets, and Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands, home to significant tuna resources. Recent research conducted in PNG found 132 different species of sharks and rays, some of which were new to science. With the IUCN report highlighting critical habitat loss as another factor increasing the extinction risk for sharks and rays, CITES trade restrictions alone are not enough to provide comprehensive protection.

At the 14th annual meeting of the Western and Central Fisheries Committee (WCPFC), the regional body tasked with managing commercial fishing of highly migratory fish stocks, held in Manila in December 2017, there was recognition from participating countries that proactive fisheries management was needed to complement reactive conservation measures such as CITES.

WWF worked with the governments of Fiji, PNG, and the Solomon Islands to include manta and mobula rays as a Key Shark Species, meaning the WCPFC would need to start developing management measures to promote species recovery. WWF is also assisting the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, and PNG in going through the process of developing a National Plan of Action (NPOA) for sharks, a long-term management plan to identify conservation and management needs in order to protect species from unsustainable fishing.

WWF-Malaysia is also collaborating with local fishery agencies to develop highly protected areas to prohibit shark catches and protect critical habitats such as shark nursery areas and known feeding aggregation sites for manta rays.

The Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF) is taking steps towards developing regional conservation plans for threatened species this year, including sharks and rays.
 

An opportunity for WWF

While CITES is not the “silver bullet” that will save all sharks and rays from extinction, it certainly can provide a driver to stimulate conservation efforts. The 2019 CITES meeting is just over a year away, and there are more species of sharks and rays being considered for inclusion in the Convention by a number of countries. Manila was also the venue for a high-level CITES shark and ray implementation meeting at the F1 Hotel on the 21st and 22nd of March. Here, representatives from across the Asia-Pacific met to discuss issues such as production of NDFs, data deficiency, and policy development.

WWF is actively collaborating with other NGO partners to ensure a coordinated effort to implement effective shark and ray conservation work through our work with the Oceans and Wildlife Practices, focusing on conservation issues including bycatch reduction, data collection, and habitat protection, as well as being a core partner in the Global Sharks and Rays Initiative. CITES may not be able to deliver everything required to protect sharks and rays, but WWF will use all opportunities to ensure governments, NGOs, fishery managers, and the fishing industry are working in a coordinated way, and with as comprehensive an approach as possible.

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