February 12, 2014 — Fisheries officials and non-goverment organisation's throughout the Pacific are in Fiji preparing to introduce historic new measures to preserve shark numbers.
Protection for a number of shark species has been promised by members of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
More than 170 countries will begin enforcing those protections by September.
Imogen Zethoven, director of global shark conservation for the Pew Charitable Trusts, told Pacific Beat overfishing remains the biggest threat to sharks, which are often caught as by-product in longline catches.
"Longline operations focus mainly on tuna but due to the significant demand in Asia for shark fin soup it is actually quiet valuable to keep sharks, particularly their fins," she said.
"Because of that value there has been a really rapid decline in a lot of the shark species throughout the Pacific and other oceans."
Read the full story at ABC Radio Australia