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Linking extinction risk to the economic and nutritional value of sharks in small-scale fisheries

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Andrew Temple, Professor Per Berggren, Professor Selina Stead

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).


Abstract

To achieve sustainable shark fisheries, it is key to understand not only the biological drivers and environmental consequences of overfishing, but also the social and economic drivers of fisher behavior. The extinction risk of sharks is highest in coastal tropical waters, where small-scale fisheries are most prevalent. Small-scale fisheries provide a critical source of economic and nutritional security to coastal communities, and these fishers are among the most vulnerable social and economic groups. We used Kenya’s and Zanzibar’s smallscale shark fisheries, which are illustrative of the many data-poor, small-scale shark fisheries worldwide, as case studies to explore the relationship between extinction risk and the economic and nutritional value of sharks. To achieve this, we combined existing data on shark landings, extinction risk, and nutritional value with sales data at 16 key landing sites and information from interviews with 476 fishers. Shark fisheries were an important source of economic and nutritional security, valued at >US$4 million annually and providing enough nutrition for tens of thousands of people. Economically and nutritionally, catches were dominated by threatened species (72.7% and 64.6–89.7%, respectively). The most economically valuable species were large and slow to reproduce (e.g. mobulid rays, wedgefish, and bull, silky, and mako sharks) and therefore more likely to be threatened with extinction. Given the financial incentive and intensive fishing pressure, small-scale fisheries are undoubtedly major contributors to the decline of threatened coastal shark species. In the absence of effective fisheries management and enforcement, we argue that within smallscale fisheries the conditions exist for an economically incentivized feedback loop in which vulnerable fishers are driven to persistently overfish vulnerable and declining shark species. To protect these species from extinction, this feedback loop must be broken.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Temple AJ, Berggren P, Jiddawi N, Wambiji N, Poonian CNS, Salmin YN, Berumen MN, Stead SM

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Conservation Biology

Year: 2024

Pages: ePub ahead of Print

Online publication date: 16/05/2024

Acceptance date: 12/03/2024

Date deposited: 23/05/2024

ISSN (print): 0888-8892

ISSN (electronic): 1523-1739

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc.

URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14292

DOI: 10.1111/cobi.14292


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Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Global Fellowship Program
MASMA/CP/2014/01Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA)
Newcastle University Doctoral Training Awards Scheme
ORA-2022-5001

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