Palau's President Johnson Toribiong has declared the 200-island archipelago in the Western Pacific as the world's first "shark sanctuary" at the UN General Assembly. This sanctuary will ban all commercial shark fishing from its 237,000 square miles of ocean (an area the size of France). The President called for a ban on shark-finning worldwide, and asking other countries to follow in his footsteps. Furthermore, the President addressed the need to end bottom trawling, which causes more destruction to the seafloor than any other fishing method. For this move it was said that Palau is "leading the world in shark conservation" by Matt Rand of the Pew Environment Group. Palau is a shark and scuba diving hotspot, and will surely see a boost in tourism. This is important not just for Palau's economy, but for the sharks as 21% have been evaluated as threatened and 18% at near threatened. Other species are lacking data to even evaluate their status. Unfortunately for Palau, enforcement will be a problem. With such a large area and too few resources to monitor the area, illegal fishing will persist. However, the sharks must be offloaded at a port, and if enough nations ban such shark fishing, enforcement will be much easier as a group effort.
Read more about this shark sanctuary in a recent BBC news story.
