As Americans tune in to TV programs like “Top 5 Eaten Alive” and “Jaws Comes Home” as part of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, leaders in the western Pacific have taken a big step toward nurturing the predator: deciding jointly to create the largest shark sanctuary in the world.
The sanctuary covers two million square miles, roughly equivalent to two-thirds of the continental United States, and is the first joint regional attempt to protect sharks. The move was approved in a joint resolution signed at the 15th Micronesian chief executive summit meeting on the Micronesian island of Pohnpei.
The resolution opens a yearlong process to officially establish the sanctuary. It bans the harvesting of sharks and the possession and sale of shark parts throughout the island nations of Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands as well as Guam.
While many of these nations and Guam, a United States territory, already had measures in place to protect sharks to some extent, including Palau, which created the world’s first shark sanctuary in 2009, the agreement represents a regional consensus on shark conservation standards and strategy.
It is the first time that Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, which have exclusive economic control over about 1.5 million square miles of ocean, have taken action to protect sharks in their waters. “This issue is finally gaining traction,” said Matt Rand, director of global shark conservation for the Pew Environment Group, which helped draft the agreement.
While watching sharks stalk their prey to eerie soundtracks may make for heart- stopping television, the fact is that sharks are responsible for the death of only two to three people each year. Yet people kill nearly 73 million sharks annually, primarily for their fins to meet a demand for shark-fin soup in Asia. Nearly one-third of all shark species are threatened with extinction.
“Sharks are unlike any other fish,” Mr. Rand said. “They grow slowly, reach sexual maturity relatively late in life and only give birth to a few pups. In my opinion, there is no way, even in theory, to harvest them sustainably.”
The Pew Environment Group is already turning its attention to Fiji and American Samoa in the hope of expanding the network of shark sanctuaries around the world. Mr. Rand hopes that within five years, shark-hunting will be be banned in most of the Pacific.