KARACHI, Wednesday, September 9, 2026 (WNP): WWF-Pakistan has welcomed Pakistan’s first National Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks (NPOA-Sharks Pakistan 2025–2035), calling it a major milestone for the conservation and sustainable management of sharks, rays, skates and chimaeras in the country.

The 10-year framework provides a coordinated national approach to reverse declining populations, strengthen fisheries management and enforcement, reduce bycatch and illegal finning, protect critical marine habitats, improve scientific research and monitoring, and support sustainable fisheries and coastal livelihoods.

The urgency is clear. A WWF-Pakistan assessment reported in 2021 found that shark landings in Pakistan had declined by more than 85 per cent over five decades, highlighting the need for stronger conservation measures, species-specific monitoring and improved fisheries data.

For WWF-Pakistan, the NPOA marks the culmination of more than a decade of advocacy, scientific research, fisheries monitoring, policy engagement and collaboration with fishing communities and government institutions. The organisation began advocating for a national plan as early as 2014, when it highlighted the need for a coordinated national framework to address declining shark populations and gaps in fisheries information.

This work also contributed to stronger provincial conservation measures. In 2016, Sindh and Balochistan introduced fisheries-management measures protecting a range of threatened sharks and rays, including whale sharks, silky sharks, oceanic whitetip sharks, hammerheads, thresher sharks, mobulid rays, sawfishes, wedgefishes and guitarfishes.

Recognising that many of these species are migratory and move across national boundaries, WWF-Pakistan convened a Regional Workshop on Shark Conservation and Management in the North Indian Ocean in Karachi in 2019, bringing together coastal states, scientists, intergovernmental organisations and conservation partners to advance regional cooperation and improve fisheries data and conservation measures. WWF-Pakistan has also advocated for stronger conservation measures through the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), including measures for vulnerable mobulid rays.

Rab Nawaz, Senior Director, Biodiversity, WWF-Pakistan, said: “Pakistan’s National Plan of Action is a significant conservation milestone and addresses a need that WWF-Pakistan has highlighted for more than a decade. The real value of the national framework, however, will be determined by implementation. Strong enforcement, reliable scientific monitoring, protection of threatened species and critical habitats, and meaningful participation of fishing communities will be essential if the NPOA is to deliver measurable conservation outcomes.”

A key part of WWF-Pakistan’s work has been putting fishing communities at the centre of conservation and fisheries science. Through its crew-based observer programme, fishing crews and skippers have been trained in data collection, reporting, species identification and the safe handling and release of vulnerable marine species. Particular attention has been given to the safe release of whale sharks incidentally entangled in tuna gillnets, while interactions with manta and devil rays have also been documented.

Shoaib Abdul Razzaque, Manager Marine Programme and Focal Point Oceans, WWF-Pakistan, said: “One of the most important lessons from our work is that fishermen need to be part of the conservation solution. When a trained fishing crew safely releases an incidentally entangled whale shark and properly records the interaction, we achieve two important outcomes: the immediate survival of a threatened animal and a scientific record that can contribute to better fisheries management.”

The decline of sawfishes, historically recorded in Pakistan’s coastal and estuarine waters and now considered locally extinct based on available records and assessments, further demonstrates the consequences of delayed conservation action. WWF-Pakistan has worked to document their historical occurrence and investigate whether remnant populations may persist through approaches including environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys.

WWF-Pakistan said effective implementation of the NPOA will require sustained coordination among federal and provincial fisheries authorities, fishing communities, scientists and regional and international partners, including FAO, IOTC, CMS and CITES.

“The NPOA is an important milestone. The next milestone must be effective implementation and measurable conservation outcomes in the water.”