Wins for Sharks and ‘Mini Mantas’ at CITES

Thresher sharks

Thresher sharks – common, pelagic and bigeye – have become known as ‘Indiana Jones sharks’ by the media because of their long, whip-like tails, which they use to stun small fishes. They also have the unfortunate distinction of belonging to one of the most threatened shark families – all three thresher species have undergone serious population declines.

Threshers are fished for their meat and their fins. In the early 2000s, they comprised about 2.3% of shark fins identified in Hong Kong markets, representing some 350,000 to 3.9 million sharks per annum. A recent study of the fin trade, albeit using different methods, found that only 0.1% of fins sampled in 2014 were from thresher sharks. The meat, particularly that of the common thresher shark, is also highly valued, and threshers are popular game fishes for sea anglers.

On the other hand, the value of thresher sharks for non-consumptive dive tourism can be huge. The community of Malapascua Island in the Philippines made a desperate plea to Parties in Johannesburg, begging them to list threshers in CITES because this would help them protect their single greatest asset: the pelagic threshers that visit a local fish cleaning station, which is now one of the world’s most famous shark dives. These sharks, through the support of visiting divers, enabled the island to rebuild its economy after the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan. This community must now be one of the world’s most fervent advocates for thresher shark conservation.

The bigeye thresher was proposed for listing in Appendix II by Sri Lanka, supported by a record-breaking 50 other CITES Parties. The proposal was developed because the species is widely recognised as being so vulnerable biologically, and so susceptible to capture in pelagic fisheries, that it is now a prohibited species in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Sri Lanka has also enacted domestic legislation to protect the species, which can no longer be landed by Sri Lankan fishers. Regional fisheries prohibitions are very difficult to enforce without complementary trade controls to ensure that products entering trade were legally obtained and from sustainable fisheries. Because the fins of all three threshers are very similar, the other two species (common and pelagic threshers) also had to be listed in CITES Appendix II under ‘lookalike’ provisions so that trade in the bigeye can be regulated.

Making Appendix II listings work

The overwhelming vote in favour of the shark and ray proposals confirmed that CITES is indeed ready to contribute to the sustainability of important commercial fisheries that supply the shark-fin trade. So what happens next?

The two shark proposals were adopted with a 12-month delayed implementation period and the ray proposals with a six-month delay (the listings would otherwise have come into force three months after the CoP). This gives countries extra time to work out how to implement them, for example by ensuring that the species and their products can be identified by national fisheries and customs staff and that sustainable levels of capture have been defined.

Appendix II requires that trade be legal and sustainable. Countries where the sharks and rays are fished must first issue a Legal Acquisition Finding. This confirms that the products being traded did not, for example, come from protected species or protected areas, or from prohibited fishing gears, or in contravention of other laws. Once that’s done, a Non-Detriment Finding (NDF) must be issued to confirm that the export will not be detrimental to the wild populations. This is a form of sustainability certificate. For transboundary stocks, it makes sense to develop shared or regional NDFs. These might set out what needs to be done to make the fishery sustainable and/or set a Total Allowable Catch for the whole stock and split this up into quotas for each country.

The shark listing proposals were helped through the debate at CoP17 by the fact that Germany had already commissioned and circulated draft regional NDFs for thresher sharks in the North Atlantic and for silky sharks in the Indian Ocean. These drafts are intended to be developed further by fishing countries, to agree conservation and sustainability actions in each region and to decide what levels of fishing and trade are safe for species listed in Appendix II. This is just the beginning of an extensive programme of work that needs to be undertaken over the next three years to implement the shark and ray listings adopted last month, as well as those from CoP16 in Bangkok in 2013. There will be close scrutiny of implementation efforts over the next few years, when countries report back to CoP18 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Big grey animals

Year after year, elephants (ivory) and rhinos (horn) dominate discussions at CITES meetings. This year was no different, but why mention this in an article that focuses on marine species?

The reason is that there are important parallels between these large mammals, listed in the CITES Appendices during the first meeting in 1976, and sharks and rays, which have been such a struggle to add in recent years. All these species are being killed at unsustainable rates in substantial parts of their range, depleting many wild populations. They are being overexploited primarily to provide high-value luxury goods that are traded internationally, particularly to meet consumer demand in East Asia. In all cases, it is therefore necessary not only to control the supply end of the chain (poaching and fisheries), but also to reduce consumer demand.

While these species can be even more valuable alive than dead for the relatively few communities able to engage in ecotourism, not all communities have this opportunity. An additional problem is that some of these animals are potentially dangerous alive, at least in some situations, and undeniably very valuable when dead if their products enter trade (legal or illegal).

So there is a cautionary tale here: it has definitely not been easy to implement CITES listings for charismatic species like elephants and rhinos, which confront many of the same problems faced by sharks and rays. We should not automatically assume that progress will be any smoother for sharks and rays. However, the management of marine species through CITES will benefit significantly from the long history of various countries’ experience of managing their elephants, rhinos, sturgeons and even commercial timber species. Sharks and rays have another important factor in their favour: the combination of fisheries management at national and regional levels, with newly available CITES trade controls, may yield benefits not available to many large grey land animals.