New Global Report Identifies Critical Habitats for Migratory Sharks and Rays

Drawing on the expertise of over 1,330 scientists from over 100 countries, the Ocean Travellers Report synthesizes decades of research to map reproductive sites, migratory corridors, feeding grounds, and aggregation hotspots across 70% of the global ocean, including coastal waters, island chains, continental shelves, offshore seamounts, and areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ).

Only One Percent of Important Shark and Ray Areas in the Western Indian Ocean Are Fully Protected From Fishing Pressure

The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) is known for its high diversity of chondrichthyans (sharks, rays, and chimaeras). However, intense fishing pressure has led to severe population declines and local extinctions of several species.

Important Shark and Ray Areas can inform conservation planning in the Mediterranean and Black Seas

The designation of protected areas needs to accelerate rapidly to achieve Target 3 of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), raising concerns that protected area quality will be overlooked

Mapping ISRAs in the Central and South American Pacific – existing knowledge and data needs

Identifying critical habitats is key to the conservation and recovery of threatened species. A third of chondrichthyans (sharks, rays, and chimaeras) are threatened with extinction but robust biological and ecological information to delineate critical habitats for many species remains limited.

Turning the tide for sharks: Important Shark and Ray Areas

Two years after the Important Shark and Ray Areas project was launched, nearly two-thirds (63.8%) of global marine waters have been examined and 4.3% are identified as critical habitats for the persistence of sharks, rays and chimaeras (hereafter sharks).

IUCN WCPA Technical Note 16: Approaches for identifying areas of particular importance for marine biodiversity

A technical brief on important marine areas has just been released at the 2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (CoP 16) of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Cali, Colombia.

Shortfalls in the protection of Important Shark and Ray Areas undermine shark conservation efforts in the Central and South American Pacific

We’re excited to share our latest paper. This research looked at how Important Shark and Ray Areas (ISRAs) overlapped with marine protected areas in the Central and South American Pacific region.

A New Hope

A newly released peer-reviewed paper in Frontiers in Marine Science emphasises that establishing measures to address the global decline in Chondrichthyes