Almost every country with a coastline is involved in the international shark fin trade.

While not perfect, implementation efforts for the CITES listed sharks and rays have been both unprecedented in the history of the convention in terms of scale, and highly successful in their application.

Global Efforts

Since 2013, governments, NGOs, and other partner organizations have hosted trainings worldwide for fisheries, customs and enforcement officials as they implement these listings. These sessions have offered guidance and capacity building and have included topics of scientific and technical species assessments, shark fin identification, and enforcement tools.

Spurred by CITES and reinforced by these trainings, governments worldwide have begun to enact domestic management to meet their CITES obligations. Some countries have completed NDFs which show it is possible to continue limited international sustainably (many of which are available on the CITES shark and ray portal as examples to others), while others have put in place domestic management measures that include: prohibiting exports, prohibiting catch, and establishing shark sanctuaries which prohibit all catch and trade of sharks in their waters.  

Without the requirements of CITES to prioritize the management of listed species, it is likely far fewer management measures for threatened sharks would exist today.

NDF Training

For sustainable trade to continue, countries must first develop a Non-Detriment Finding, or an NDF, which determines whether export in a listed species would be sustainable, and at what level.

To ensure governments worldwide are able to conduct these NDFs with confidence, a wide array of guidelines and tools have been developed by, among others, the German government, TRAFFIC, and Blue Resources Trust. Examples of these can be found on our Resources Page.

Workshops have also been conducted to demonstrate how to use these tools, and how even without a domestic stock assessment—as data collection for shark species is often poor—governments can still estimate whether populations are healthy enough to continue export and trade.

Enforcement via visual id

Whether governments put in place export quotas via NDFs, catch limits, or prohibitions for CITES listed shark species, enforcement of these regulations via quick visual identification of species in transit is critical to the success of any measure.

Additionally, Hong Kong SAR is the global hub for the international shark fin trade, with 50% of fins transiting through its ports each year. Because of this, local officials have made enforcement of the CITES shark listings a priority. Hong Kong SAR officials have conducted over a dozen trainings on CITES visual ID since 2013 and seized over 5 tonnes of illegally shipped CITES species passing through their ports. By prioritizing the enforcement of CITES in the global shark fin hub, Hong Kong SAR is able to alert governments to any illegal trade that may be taking place in their country, which in turn allows exporter to identify and loopholes in domestic management for listed species.