We're working with Shark Advocates International, Shark Trust, and Ecology Action Centre to target three RFMOs - the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM), and the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO).

We want to secure:

• Science-based shark and ray catch limits;
• Strict protections for endangered species; and
• Strong, enforceable bans on shark finning.

Is Your Country Missing from the Mako Champions Map?

Since ICCAT 2017, we’ve been keeping an eye on the top mako fishing countries. We want to ensure that they come up with solid measures to implement the 2017 ICCAT binding recommendation to immediately take actions to end overfishing of the North Atlantic shortfin mako stock, as the first step in the development of a rebuilding plan.

Throughout 2020, we're promoting and tracking support from Atlantic fishing nations to tackle one of the world's most pressing shark conservation crisis: the dangerous decline of Atlantic shortfin makos.

Join us and our Shark League partners! We are urging top fishing nations to prohibit retention of Atlantic mako sharks immediately, as advised by ICCAT scientists, and push for an Atlantic-wide ban.

Help Get ICCAT Parties on the Mako Champions Map

ICCAT - A WAKE-UP CALL

We are deeply disappointed that the ICCAT shark fishing decisions keep falling short of the clearest scientific advice to date for shortfin mako sharks. This exceptionally vulnerable species is now left at risk for population collapse.

Despite the clear scientific advice and growing public support for strict conservation measures, the only new shark agreement resulting from the Regular Meeting of the Commission, in November 2017, was a phased-in approach to narrow the conditions under which shortfin makos can be landed - a first step toward preventing further population decline but the measure includes numerous exceptions and applies only to the North Atlantic population.

In 2019, a new report showed that the overfished North Atlantic Shortfin Mako Shark population is continuing to decline and needs not only immediate protection but several decades to recover. Based on new projections for mako populations, scientists associated with ICCAT amplified previous warnings and recommended a North Atlantic ban on retention. Because of depletion to date and an exceptionally low reproductive rate, this population is predicted to continue to decline for another fifteen years before rebuilding can begin.

Conservationists were shocked and distressed that the European Union and the United States - despite long promoting science-based shark conservation - were the main obstacles to the adoption of urgently needed protections for mako sharks at the 26th ICCAT Regular Meeting of the Commission held in Spain in November 2019.

Scientists have pushed the earliest possibility of North Atlantic population recovery to 2045, five years later than predicted in 2017. This scenario has a 53% chance if all mortality is ended. Scientists also flagged a significant risk that South Atlantic Shortfin Makos will follow a similar path.