Plans to protect sharks set to receive backing

EU fisheries ministers are next week expected to back plans to protect endangered sharks. At a meeting in Luxembourg (23-24 April) ministers will be invited to endorse measures to stop overfishing of sharks and follow the international conservation plans that the EU has already signed up to.

They will also discuss an EU shark action plan that was published by the European Commission in January.

One-third of shark species in European waters are threatened, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Sonja Fordham of the Shark Alliance, a coalition of conservation groups, described the Commission's plan as encouraging, but noted that “it is just a plan, it is not binding”.

She said the priority should be toughening up the implementation of the EU ban on shark ‘finning', the practice of catching a shark, cutting off its fins and throwing it back into the sea to die.

originally posted here: http://www.sharktrust.org/content.asp?did=32651