Linking extinction risk to the economic and nutritional value of sharks in small-scale fisheries

To achieve sustainable shark fisheries, it is key to understand not only the biological drivers and environmental consequences of overfishing, but also the social and economic drivers of fisher behavior. The extinction risk of sharks is highest in coastal tropical waters, where small-scale fisheries are most prevalent. Small-scale fisheries provide a critical source of economic and nutritional security to coastal communities, and these fishers are among the most vulnerable social and economic groups. We used Kenya’s and Zanzibar’s smallscale shark fisheries, which are illustrative of the many data-poor, small-scale shark fisheries worldwide, as case studies to explore the relationship between extinction risk and the economic and nutritional value of sharks. To achieve this, we combined existing data on shark landings, extinction risk, and nutritional value with sales data at 16 key landing sites and information from interviews with 476 fishers. Shark fisheries were an important source of economic and nutritional security, valued at >US$4 million annually and providing enough nutrition for tens of thousands of people. Economically and nutritionally, catches were dominated by threatened species (72.7% and 64.6–89.7%, respectively). The most economically valuable species were large and slow to reproduce (e.g. mobulid rays, wedgefish, and bull, silky, and mako sharks) and therefore more likely to be threatened with extinction. Given the financial incentive and intensive fishing pressure, small-scale fisheries are undoubtedly major contributors to the decline of threatened coastal shark species. In the absence of effective fisheries management and enforcement, we argue that within smallscale fisheries the conditions exist for an economically incentivized feedback loop in which vulnerable fishers are driven to persistently overfish vulnerable and declining shark species. To protect these species from extinction, this feedback loop must be broken

Diversity and distribution of seagrasses in the Union of the Comoros

This study represents the first in situ assessment of seagrasses in the Union of the Comoros. The presence of the following 10 species (ranked in order of abundance) was confirmed: Thalassia hemprichii, Thalassodendron ciliatum, Syringodium isoetifolium, Halodule wrightii, Cymodocea rotundata, Cymodocea serrulata, Halodule uninervis, Halophila ovalis, Zostera capensis and Enhalus acoroides. Seagrasses occurred in large, continuous beds in the shallow waters at the northern and southern tips of Grande Comore Island and around the Bimbini Peninsula on western Anjouan Island, but were sparsely distributed throughout the shallow waters surrounding Mohéli Island.Keywords: Anjouan, Comores, Grande Comore, Mohéli, Mozambique Channel, seagrass bed