World's largest shark sanctuary created

Shark News

Sharks protected in area the size of Australia

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 13 December, 2012 : - - The South Pacific Cook Islands have declared a 1.9 million-sq-km sanctuary, contiguous with one established last week by neighbouring French Polynesia. This now sees a ban on shark fishing and possession or sale of shark products in an area now totalling 6.7 million sq km, or nearly the size of Australia.

As top predators, overfishing of sharks disrupts complex oceanic food webs. About a third of ocean-going sharks appear on the internationally-recognised Red List of Threatened Species. "We are proud as Cook Islanders to provide our entire exclusive economic zone... as a shark sanctuary," said Teina Bishop, Cook Islands minister of marine resources.

"We join our Pacific neighbours to protect this animal, which is very vital to the health of our oceans, and our culture." Other island nations with sanctuaries also include Palau, the Maldives, Tokelau, Honduras and the Bahamas. Last week's move by French Polynesia overtook the Marshall Islands' area, outlined in late 2011, as the world's largest - and the Cook Island's claim adds 40% more area to that title.

As with the Marshall Islands' declaration, the Cook Islands' effort was with the help of the Pew Environment Group, which advocates island nations' involvement because of the vast scope of their territorial waters. Pew worked for more than a year with the Pacific Islands Conservation Initiative. This is hopeful news for the world's sharks and efforts to protect them.

Read the full article at Pew Environment

www.picionline.org
www.pewenvironment.org

Source: PEW

Author: The Editors

Tags: Cook Islands, Grey Reef Sharks, Sanctuary

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