​The IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group (SSG) hosted their second Global Report Writing workshop from Saturday, 18th March, to Monday, 20th March, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This allowed us to gather contributors from IUCN SSC SSG's Asia and Indian Ocean regions. These regions were underrepresented in our first workshop in October 2022, held alongside Sharks International (Valencia, Spain). Twenty-two contributors joined us in person from the SSG regional groups of Asia, Indian Ocean, and Oceania.

​We want to invite you to discover the eighth issue of Shark News – the official IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Shark Specialist Group (SSG) magazine.
 
Shark News provides a forum for the exchange of information on all aspects of shark, ray, and chimaera conservation matters for SSG members and the general interested audience.

«​To inform policy and support policymakers and other relevant stakeholders in the decision-making process, the IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group (SSG), in collaboration with the IUCN SSC Conservation Planning Specialist Group (CPSG), is working towards the development of a conservation strategy and action plan for pelagic sharks and rays. The work undertaken so far has been supported by the Convention on the Conservation on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) Secretariat.»

As a follow-up to our Crash Course in Human Dimensions of Shark Conservation. We ran a 4-day free webinar in June 2023 as part of the workshop series. The following topics were covered:

1. Understanding trade for sharks, rays, and chimaeras and their products;
2. Gathering and using local ecological knowledge;
3. Using citizen science for conservation.

​This news article featured the second Important Shark and Ray Areas (ISRA) workshop, in a series of 13 regional workshops to be organized around the world, for the Mediterranean and Black Seas region.