Sustainable Shark Conservation: Latest Advances and Prospects

Dear Colleagues,

Globally, shark populations are experiencing rapid and steep declines, primarily due to overfishing, both as a target and bycatch species, but these declines are exacerbated by the pollution and habitat loss, with localised extirpations being reported for some coastal species. However, sharks continue to be an important economic and nutritional resource for many coastal communities, particularly in developing countries, although they have only recently become the focus of fishery management and trade regulation. For sustainable catch fisheries to become a possibility, management solutions need to address alternative mitigative measures for the livelihood and food security of impacted human communities.

Shark management is complex and, historically, implementation was applied at a range of scales, although this is dependent on whether it is approached from either a fishery management or conservation perspective. If efforts to rebuild populations and ensure the future use of sharks as a resource are to succeed, then advances in research are needed to underpin sound fishery management and trade regulation in order to achieve sustainability.

A significant obstacle to improving shark management is insufficient data on species diversity and abundance at local and national levels, which hinders science-based management. Without fundamental data on shark fisheries, use and trade, governments may be unable to act, or may implement inappropriate policies and, when implemented, will be unable to assess the impacts of such decisions. Coastal and nearshore fisheries can be some of the most impactful, yet they are the least managed. Similarly, local patterns of shark consumption, demand and trade often go undocumented, yet can provide important insight for managers.

The focus of this issue is to showcase novel interdisciplinary studies which attempt to solve the current challenges of shark conservation, such as reducing bycatch, as well as those which address obstacles to shark management and trade regulation via data collection that can support management decisions. The purpose of this Special Issue in the Journal of Sustainability is to highlight high-quality research articles and reviews that address knowledge gaps and enable the improved management of sharks, with the ultimate goal of exchanging ideas and highlighting methods and case studies of sustainable use techniques, management, policy initiatives and research into elasmobranch ecology and science.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Bycatch mitigation;
• Baseline assessments of diversity/abundance;
• Impacts of predator loss on communities;
• Marine protected area effectiveness;
• Ecotourism/non-consumptive uses for sharks and rays;
• Fisheries management approaches;
• New data analysis techniques or approaches, particularly for data poor locations;
• Improving traceability of trade at domestic or international levels;
• Shark product demand reduction or consumer education;
• Post-release survivorship;
• Alternative livelihoods for fishers;
• Social science perspectives of fishers and fishing communities;
• Impacts of multinational conservation agreements;
• Shark-focused policy/regulatory development.

Dr. Mark E. Bond
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• elasmobranch
• shark
• ray
• fisheries management
• biodiversity conservation
• trade
• marine protected area