{"id":1109,"date":"2016-11-18T14:07:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T14:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/uncategorized\/1109\/new-trade-protections-for-sharks-but-are-they-enough\/"},"modified":"2019-11-06T08:23:20","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:23:20","slug":"new-trade-protections-for-sharks-but-are-they-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/blogs\/1109\/new-trade-protections-for-sharks-but-are-they-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"New trade protections for sharks – but are they enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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All rights reserved<\/a>. Credit: BBC, Carlos Aguilera<\/em><\/div>\n
Hoo-RAY! A Mobular ray leaps from the ocean after hearing about the new CITES protection for sharks.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Like it or not, around the world many species of animals are seen as tradeable commodities \u2013 for things like food, fur, fashion or medicine. Of course we know that historically hunting animals for commercial gain has often been really bad news for the animals concerned. Just stop and think about some of the most recognisable big land mammals \u2013 things like tigers, elephants and rhinos \u2013 and it\u2019s pretty evident what trade can do to even well-known beasts, pushing many of them to the very brink of extinction.<\/p>\n

In response to ever-increasing pressure on such species, an international organisation was set up to regulate the international trade of endangered species:\u00a0the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species<\/a>\u00a0(CITES for short). Through CITES global governments get together to agree actions that protect endangered species, from strictly regulating trade to ensure it\u2019s sustainable, to full-on bans.<\/p>\n

So far so good. But marine animals tend to fare worse than those on land. Farther away and more out of sight, the laws governing the world\u2019s oceans are not great if you happen to be one of the critters that live in them, and for many years CITES has simply not been able to step in to protect endangered marine species (fish species in particular<\/a>) because of some nations\u2019 vehement opposition to them doing so, believing this should *only* be dealt with by Fisheries Management Organisations. Historically of course bad fisheries management has been the problem, rather than a solution for marine conservation.<\/p>\n

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But things are slowly changing. In recent years some\u00a0species of sharks and rays<\/a>\u00a0have managed to gain trade protections through CITES, as well as some\u00a0seahorses<\/a>, and this year\u2019s CITES meeting added even more threatened shark and ray species to that list, thanks to a strong campaigning effort by conservation groups and championing governments. So which species are this year\u2019s winners?<\/p>\n

First up,\u00a0Mobula Rays<\/a><\/strong>. \u2018Mobu- what?\u2019 I hear some of you ask. These are the so-called \u2018devil rays\u2019, an unfortunately named group of amazing filter-feeding giants. They\u2019re a bit smaller than the already protected Manta Rays, but every bit as awesome. If you haven\u2019t already seen the\u00a0mesmerising footage<\/a>\u00a0of these animals leaping out of the sea \u2013 you\u2019re in for a treat. Mobulas, like Mantas are endangered because of\u00a0demand for their gills<\/a>(gills being pretty important things to keep hold of if you\u2019re a fish). Protection for these gentle giants is great but we need to do so much more to protect them \u2013 as their ocean world turns into\u00a0plastic soup<\/a>, slow-growing plankton-eating filter-feeders might have a bleak future.<\/p>\n

Next to make it on the list are\u00a0Thresher Sharks<\/a><\/strong>. Thresher Sharks are unique, with a whip like tail that can be as long as the rest of their body, leading to them being called \u2018Indiana Jones sharks<\/a>\u2019 by some. That impressive tail is used to slap and stun fish prey, but also sadly makes the Thresher valuable for anyone interested in\u00a0trading shark fins<\/a>. These amazing creatures range around the world\u2019s oceans, including\u00a0chilly UK waters<\/a>, and one was even photographed\u00a0leaping clear of out of the sea\u00a0<\/a>off Wales not long ago. So trade protections are great for Threshers, but to truly protect these wide-ranging beasts we also need to establish\u00a0large protected areas<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 marine reserves, areas free of persecution where they and other species can survive and thrive.<\/p>\n

\"\"Lastly, the relatively unfamiliar\u00a0Silky Sharks<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0also gained CITES trade protection. Silky sharks used to be one of the most commonly found sharks in the oceans but their numbers have declined drastically in recent years. They are not alone, an estimated\u00a01\/3 of \u2018open ocean\u2019 sharks are threatened with extinction\u00a0a<\/a>nd some species\u2019 numbers have plummeted to just a few percent of their former numbers. Silky Sharks are a particular victim of tuna fisheries (they\u2019re underneath a FAD in the image). These fisheries catch tens of millions of sharks every year, as unwanted,\u00a0untargeted \u2018bycatch\u2019<\/a>\u00a0and silky sharks make up a massive proportion of this in places like the Pacific and Indian Ocean. So-called\u00a0\u2018cheap\u2019 tuna\u00a0<\/a>in reality costs the lives of endangered sharks, rays and turtles and much more. Whilst trade protection for Silky Sharks is great news, to truly halt the decline of this once-abundant species, we need to get serious about cleaning up the global tuna industry.<\/p>\n

So CITES now has a whole suite of some of the most iconic sharks and rays protected on its lists to varying degrees \u2013 Great White, Scalloped Hammerhead, Oceanic Whitetip, Porbeagle, Silky, Thresher, Basking and Whale Sharks, as well as Manta and Mobula Rays (and the related family of\u00a0sawfishes<\/a>). That\u2019s great news indeed, but also sad proof that the plight of these amazing animals has been neglected far too long, and they have already been exploited far too much.<\/p>\n

We absolutely need trade controls for marine species, there should not be any trade if it\u2019s not sustainable! But trade restrictions alone simply won\u2019t do the job. The fact that these animals are on CITES lists has to be a wake-up call to governments and those responsible for fisheries, and just being on the list won\u2019t save them. We need to look at the root causes of decline of species. To save the ocean\u2019s sharks at the very least we need a radical overhaul of horrendously destructive global fisheries like\u00a0the tuna industry<\/a>, and an urgent increase in the amount of large-scale fully-protected marine reserves\u00a0<\/a>in our oceans too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like it or not, around the world many species of animals are seen as tradeable commodities \u2013 for things like food, fur, fashion or medicine. Of course we know that historically hunting animals for commercial gain has often been really bad news for the animals concerned. Just stop and think about some of the most recognisable big land mammals \u2013 things like tigers, elephants and rhinos \u2013 and it\u2019s pretty evident what trade can do to even well-known beasts, pushing many of them to the very brink of extinction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":3855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[28,36],"p4-page-type":[48],"class_list":["post-1109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-protecttheenvironment","tag-oceans","tag-fishing","p4-page-type-blogs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8355,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions\/8355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=1109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}