Category: Press Release

Critical Habitats for Sharks and Rays Identified Across South America’s Atlantic and Inland Waters

6/5/2025

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PRESS RELEASE | Available in ENG, ESP, & POR

Results of five-day workshop on Important Shark and Ray Areas final with 102 areas identified across the region.

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Important Shark and Ray Areas delineatedin the New Zealand and Pacific Islands region: Protecting Sharks and Rays in Pacific Islands waters

19/9/2024

PRESS RELEASE

Participants of the ISRA workshop in Fiji. | © Dr. Rima Jabado

Important Shark and Ray Areas delineated in the New Zealand and Pacific Islands region Protecting Sharks and Rays in Pacific Islands waters

A decade of LAMAVE research shapes IUCN Important Shark and Ray Areas in the Philippines

14/7/2024

PRESS RELEASE

See here for the press release by the Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines (LAMAVE), featuring the ISRAs delineated in the Asia region

Researchers Map 43 Important Shark and Ray Areas in Indonesia

7/6/2024

PRESS RELEASE

The Konservasi Indonesia has provided a press release sharing an update on the Important Shark and Ray Areas (ISRA) project from Asia, specifically focusing on the ISRAs delineated in Indonesian waters.

A New Hope

20/9/2022

A newly released peer-reviewed paper in Frontiers in Marine Science emphasises that establishing measures to address the global decline in Chondrichthyes is more urgent than ever.

The paper, “Putting sharks on the map: a global standard for improving shark area-based conservation,” outlines a set of standardized criteria for Important Shark and Ray Areas (ISRAs) that can support management considerations to reverse the loss of sharks globally and integrate these into area-based planning.

Putting critical sites for sharks on the map

12/4/2022

«Generally sharks, rays and chimaeras are long-lived, take a long time to reach maturity, are slow to reproduce and, when they do, produce few young. These characteristics make them extremely vulnerable to overfishing and other human-induced impacts, like climate change and habitat degradation. It is crucial that we find new and effective ways to protect these species before it’s too late.»

The Save Our Seas Foundation, who has funded the critical work on developing the selection and review criteria for Important Shark and Ray Areas, has featured a story about the importance of this new tool to ensure the right areas for sharks are considered in spatial planning such as the design and designation of marine protected areas.

New Global Study Finds Unprecedented Shark and Ray Extinction Risk

6/9/2021

Experts classify one-third of chondrichthyan fish species as threatened, urge conservation action

Guitarfishes and wedgefishes are among the most threatened rays, due to the high value of their large fins. This Whitespotted Wedgefish (Rhynchobatus djiddensis) reaches over 3 metres long and is classified as Critically Endangered by IUCN. Protea Banks, South Africa. Photo by Matthew D. Potenski | mdp.myportfolio.com

A new analysis published today in the journal Current Biology finds that one-third of the world’s chondrichthyan fishes – sharks, rays, and chimaeras – are now threatened with extinction according to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List criteria.

In this new global analysis, experts assessed 1,199 shark, ray, and chimaera species against International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List criteria and found 391 (32%) qualify as Critically Endangered, Endangered, or Vulnerable. Species classified in these three IUCN categories are considered threatened with extinction. That statistic increases to more than one-third (37.5%) if Data Deficient species are assumed to be threatened in the same proportion as assessed species.

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Critical Habitats for Sharks and Rays Identified Across South America’s Atlantic and Inland Waters

Important Shark and Ray Areas delineatedin the New Zealand and Pacific Islands region: Protecting Sharks and Rays in Pacific Islands waters

A decade of LAMAVE research shapes IUCN Important Shark and Ray Areas in the Philippines

Researchers Map 43 Important Shark and Ray Areas in Indonesia

A New Hope

Putting critical sites for sharks on the map

New Global Study Finds Unprecedented Shark and Ray Extinction Risk

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