Papua New Guinea is committed to the establishment of a network of marine protected areas
to fulfil national and international commitments. In order to assist this, the conservation
priority areas analysis identified a range of areas of high conservation interest in the PNG
marine environment, based on the principles of comprehensiveness, adequacy,
representation and resilience (CARR). The analysis collated available national-scale data on
biodiversity features and biodiversity surrogates.
This study first presents the general knowledge on shark exploitation and vulnerability. Then, the status of coastal shark fisheries in the Pacific Islands is addressed from the angle of the data available for this region and on the basis of information collected through a questionnaire that was sent to the fisheries department of the Pacific countries. In the last part, prospects for management and regulation are discussed.