KARACHI: Speakers at a one-day workshop held here on Monday underlined the need for a national action plan for the conservation of sharks whose numbers have declined by 80 per cent over 15 years.

Shark population, they said, was essential to the prevention of the breakdown of the marine ecosystem. The steep decline in the sharks number required the government to immediately declare some areas as shark sanctuaries, they said.

The workshop titled ‘Conservation and management of shark fisheries in Pakistan’ was organised by the World Wide Fund-Pakistan (WWF-P) in collaboration with the Marine Fisheries Department (MFD) at a local hotel.

The director general of the MFD, Shaukat Hussain, said that over-exploitation was the major reason behind declining population of sharks, an important component of Pakistani fisheries.

“The management of fisheries resources is essential but that can only come about through political will. Besides, we need national, regional and international collaboration to have an effective mechanism for the management of fisheries resources,” he said.

The government was well aware of the need for developing a national action plan for sharks and a draft was being prepared.

In his brief address, Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture of The Maldives Dr Mohammad Shainee said that his country experienced similar issues with regard to shark fisheries but the situation changed once the government prohibited its fishing and declared some areas as shark sanctuaries. The Maldives, he said, had developed a national action plan for shark conservation and regional countries could learn from its experience.

Shedding light on the history of Pakistan’s shark fisheries, Mohammmad Moazzam Khan, former director general of the MFD and currently serving as a technical adviser to the WWF-P on marine resources, said the oldest evidence of shark fisheries was found in Pakistan Navy’s record that showed details of fines imposed on people engaged in fishing in and outside the limits of Karachi coast in 1800.

He also referred to an article published in 1850 that showed that sharks and whale sharks were being hunted on a large scale in that period along Sindh and Balochistan’s coast.

Documents also showed that about 50 tonnes of shark fin and meat were used to be exported to various countries during that period. Both types of fisheries, he pointed out, had died down over the time.

“Aimed shark longline and handline fishing had been common up till 2008 but because of a decrease in the catch this activity has now almost vanished. Sharks are presently caught only as a by-catch in gillnets in the coastal and offshore waters,” Mr Khan said while showing different slides.

Citing some data, he said that between 16,000 and 17,000 tonnes of sharks were used to be caught in 1940. The number increased to 50,000 in the 1970s and, with some variation, remained the same, till 1990.

“Today, it’s only around 5,000 tonnes. The period of sharp shark decline set in when more and more people started using bottom-set gillnets (a type of net that is hung straight up and down in the water like fence). The nets were distributed free of cost by the Marine Fisheries Department with the help of the Food and Agriculture Organisation in the late 1980s,” he said.

According to Mr Khan, there are about 144 species of sharks known in Pakistan, a few of them are endemic but no data exists on their status.

The chief executive officer of the Fisheries Development Board, Faisal Iftikhar, said that like other countries, shark meat was also consumed in Pakistan where some people had been selling it as the meat of salmon. Every part of a shark, he said, had some use; for instance, shark liver was rich in vitamin A while its blood and cartilage were used for medical purposes.

“The shark fin trade exists in one form or the other in most places worldwide, impacting ecosystems, fisheries and tourism. Records indicating the accurate number of fins, or sharks they come from, are not readily available for most countries,” he said.

Informing the audience about the latest CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) developments, Naeem Ashraf Raja, director of biodiversity programme of the Climate Change Division, said that the CITES parties had included a number of sharks and manta rays in Appendix II from this month that meant member countries would be required to regulate and control their fishing.

“Pakistan needs to determine the impact of this new development on its economy and biodiversity and formulate a course of action that is beneficial both to the economy and its marine biodiversity,” he said.

Hussain Sinan of the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture, The Maldives, Rab Nawaz and Umair Shahid of WWF-P also spoke.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2014