Leonard J.V. Compagno, Rachel D. Cavanagh, Malcolm J. Smale, Sheldon F.J. Dudley, Sid F. Cook, Andrew Cooke, Warwick Sauer and Hannes Holtzhausen

Authors’ note: Since this report was written, the IUCN/ SSC Shark Specialist Group (SSG) has formed a regional group for West Africa, comprising countries currently incorporated within the Northeast Atlantic and the Subequatorial Africa regions, as defined in this publication. Future web updates will cover the West African region separately.

Introduction

The Subequatorial Africa region is defined as the waters off Africa south of the equator, including the south-eastern Atlantic Ocean, the south-western Indian Ocean and part of the Southern Ocean (see map, Figure 7.10). Its longitudinal limits are 10°W to 70°E and latitudes 0–90°S. The region includes the coasts of Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania (including Zanzibar) and Kenya on the African continent, as well as Madagascar; a section of Antarctica from Cape Norvegia on the west to Cape Darnley on the east; and several island groups in the South Atlantic (Ascension, St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha and Gough), the Southern Indian Ocean (Europa, Comoros, Aldabra, Cosmoledos, Amirantes, Seychelles, Réunion, Mauritius, Rodrigues and the Cargados Archipelago) and the Southern Ocean (Bouvet, Prince Edward, Crozet and Kerguelen). This region encompasses UN FAO regions 47, 48 and 51.

This section summarises and updates Compagno et al.’s 1994 preliminary report on the faunal diversity, distribution, fisheries, conservation problems and prospects for the conservation of cartilaginous fishes in the region. The high endemicity of the chondrichthyan fauna, coupled with virtually no fisheries regulation, accelerating fisheries and other marine activities by humans and localised marine habitat degradation, calls for considerable urgency in addressing the rational exploitation and conservation of chondrichthyans of the Subequatorial Africa region.

 

Management and conservation

Many of the management challenges in the Subequatorial Africa region also occur elsewhere around the world and the combination of high endemism, little regulation of fisheries, few biological and fisheries studies, a limited researcher base, and the limitations of several developing and politically troubled countries exposes many of the area’s chondrichthyan species to exploitational and unregulated fisheries interests. Catches of cartilaginous fishes in the region are largely unregulated, except for limited controls in South Africa, which include protection and decommercialisation of the white shark, a ban on pelagic gillnets in territorial waters, and the use of licensed permits and limited entry for longlining and gillnetting of cartilaginous fishes (but without quotas).

The problems are exacerbated by economic pressure from first world countries and corporations to open up and privatise resources that were previously afforded limited protection, including important fisheries areas. The economic value of coastal ecosystems is critically important and often not being realised due to political unrest, a lack of holistic planning and management, and a lack of investment into appropriate development strategies. A comprehensive institutional capacity-building approach is required in all the countries under discussion, which encompasses all coastal communities and institutions.

In certain countries, particularly South Africa, sharks continue to have an image problem, and shark scares, media hyperbole around shark attacks and a perceived need for anti-shark measures in KwaZulu-Natal still flourish along with the myth of their being ‘inedible.’ Yet there is a growing awareness among the general public and in the marine research and conservation community of the need for chondrichthyan conservation. One hope for redressing the commonly held negative perception of sharks is the growing interest of SCUBA divers to dive and photograph chondrichthyans. These enthusiasts may be regarded as champions of the cause who have considerable potential to economically reward communities and countries with healthy populations of sharks through properly managed dive ecotourism. A rapidly growing economy in Africa is ecotourism, with shark diving being a major industry in some areas. Cage diving with white sharks in particular is fast becoming a very popular and profitable industry; there is also diving with ragged tooth sharks and whale sharks. If properly managed, this activity has positive conservation benefits for the species, but strict regulations must be enforced (IFAW 2001).

In South Africa, a working group was established to produce a Shark Assessment Report (SAR) and National Plan of Action for sharks (NPOA-Sharks) in South Africa under the FOA International Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks (IPOA-Sharks) (see this chapter, South Africa) (Sauer and Shipton 2003). Marine and Coastal Management (MCM), the government agency responsible for management of marine resources, has had a Chondrichthyan Working Group for several years and is in the process of setting up a permanent research position to deal specifically with chondrichthyan issues (see below). It is envisaged that an additional Shark Management Advisory Group will be set up in the near future. In 2001, as a result of a Workshop on Shark Conservation and Management in Africa, hosted by the International Federation for Animal Welfare (IFAW), the African Shark Management Group (ASMG) was formed. This is an advisory group which seeks representation and active participation from all African coastal states and islands, aiming to build capacity and share expertise in order to maximise the long-term economic and social benefits to African countries by sustainable use and conservation of chondrichthyans (IFAW 2001). At the time of writing, an IUCN/SSC Shark Specialist Group Red List Workshop was being planned to assess the status of the chondrichthyans of this region (refer to www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/organizations/ssg/ssg.htm).

Although the landing, transport, transhipment and disposal of sharks (that were not either whole, or gutted and headed) was banned in South Africa in 1998, when the Living Marine Resources Act was promulgated, this law was poorly enforced. Special dispensation could be obtained by far seas fishing vessels transferring cargoes in South Africa through specific trading agreements. This highlights the necessity of combining effective fisheries management with adequate enforcement if the region’s chondrichthyan populations are to be maintained and in some cases allowed to recover to former healthy levels.