Shark fishing and trading nations ‘falling short of conservation commitments’

The new Shark Conservation Report, “Bridging the Gaps that Hinder Shark Conservation: An analysis of ICCAT Parties’ policies for CITES-listed Atlantic elasmobranchs”, reviews the performance of ICCAT’s 52 parties and five co-operators (CPCs) with respect to obligations for Atlantic shark and ray species listed under CITES between 2002 and 2020. It also identifies key implementation and policy gaps and recommends priority improvements at national and international levels.

According to the Shark League, which includes the partners Shark Advocates International, the Shark Trust, the PADI Aware Foundation and the Ecology Action Centre, several of the actions it is recommending will be considered by ICCAT. These include:

• Strengthening the shark finning ban by banning at-sea fin removal (a multi-national effort led by the US)
• Reducing and allocating blue shark quotas based on new scientific advice
• Protecting mobula rays and whale sharks (proposed by the UK and EU, respectively)

The coalition, which is focused on the conservation of sharks and rays, says these animals continued to be threatened mainly by overfishing, with international trade as a key driver. It maintains the success of international conservation agreements depends on proper implementation at a national level.

It explains that because sharks and rays are considered both commodities and wildlife, governments’ approaches toward meeting obligations under fisheries and environment treaties are often misaligned. As such, its new analysis explores problematic gaps in the national implementation of CITES and ICCAT commitments stemming from this divide, as well as serious inadequacies in countries’ basic reporting of vital catch and trade statistics for these species.

“ICCAT and CITES have both advanced shark and ray conservation, and both bodies face major implementation challenges stemming from inadequate resources and insufficient political will,” said Sonja Fordham, President of Shark Advocates International. “We document myriad gaps that hinder effective conservation and urgently warrant priority attention from multiple government agencies and stakeholders. Narrowing the divides highlighted in our report is essential to ensuring a brighter outlook for sharks and rays in the Atlantic and beyond.”

The coalition highlighted that the European Union is by far the top ICCAT CPC for shark and ray fishing, with landings that exceed those reported by all other ICCAT CPCs combine, while countries with significant discrepancies between the shark and ray landings they report to ICCAT versus the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) include the People’s Republic of China, Spain, Portugal and Liberia.

Despite ICCAT measures that ban retention of multiple shark species, very few ICCAT CPCs are meeting their requirements to report discarding them, it said, adding that most ICCAT CPCs don’t report any shark discards at all; this includes five countries that rank in the top 10 for reported shark landings (Namibia, Morocco, Ghana, Senegal and Belize).

According to the Shark League, only 12 ICCAT CPCs report plans to increase onboard monitoring of longliner fleets to the agreed 10%.

“Despite a rising profile at CITES, sharks and rays are less valuable than traditional food fish and remain a relatively low priority for fisheries bodies,” said Ali Hood, Director of Conservation for the Shark Trust. “We must balance the attention given to achieving conservation agreements with the fulfilment of commitments, particularly limits on fishing and trade. Recently, it’s been encouraging to see the 2019 CITES obligations for severely depleted Atlantic shortfin mako sharks at last result in overdue cutbacks in fishing by the world leader in mako catch – the EU – and we’re advocating for similar policy integration to help achieve necessary reductions in blue shark quotas at ICCAT this month.”

The report finds that most countries are not yet reporting oceanic shark landings from the high seas as “Introduction from the Sea” to CITES, as required. Production, quality and availability of Atlantic shark and ray “Non-Detriment Findings” (NDFs, required for export of CITES Appendix II listed species) are also lacking, with 13 ICCAT CPCs reporting commercial trade in listed sharks without public NDFs.

Only four ICCAT CPCs have publicised negative NDFs for sharks.

“Lack of data on shark and ray exploitation is a primary and persistent hurdle to population assessment, compliance monitoring, and conservation, with governments’ required reports too often incomplete, late, inconsistent, or non-existent,” said Shannon Arnold, Associate Director for the Ecology Action Centre. “Our analysis includes a deep dive into ICCAT members’ 2022 Shark Check Sheets, initiated by the ICCAT Compliance Committee to elicit domestic implementation information. They clearly show that many CPCs still lack national regulations to implement ICCAT shark measures. We’re holding out hope that the increasing scrutiny will result in wide-ranging benefits before it’s too late.”

The report concludes with specific recommendations for improving shark and ray conservation through better integration of fisheries and environmental agency activities. Governments are urged to focus on immediate fulfilment of various treaty obligations and to be more timely, accurate, and transparent in reporting of catches and trade. Assistance for low-capacity countries should be requested and facilitated as a matter of priority.

CITES-specific needs include a shift toward reporting exports by region/ocean/population; robust, public NDFs tied to concrete fishing limits; and consideration of listing heavily traded, less iconic species like skates and dogfishes. ICCAT-specific needs include elimination of exceptions to retention bans for hammerhead, silky and bigeye thresher sharks; augmentation and long-term extension of the North Atlantic shortfin mako ban; new safeguards for unprotected species; and 100% observer coverage for large-scale longliners.