24 Oct 2014
Projects Abroad, a global volunteer company, has partnered with South African NGO, South African Shark Conservancy (SASC) in a new venture to increase shark conservation.
“With 40% of the world's wildlife depleted in the last 50 years, there has never been a more important time to encourage conservation among local communities and the youth,” says Ingrid Sprake, a director of conservation at Projects Abroad.
This venture will see volunteers from around the globe coming to Hermanus in the Western Cape to conduct research on the Great White sharks that visit the coastline annually, as well as the local shark species prevalent in these waters. “South Africa is one of the few places in the world that these animals regularly return to, making it an ideal place for research. It also has the second largest endemic shark species globally.”
Volunteers will spend time researching sharks through tagging and monitoring the creatures, as well as educating the local communities on how sharks are being depleted through commercial fishing, and how they can fish in their local waters sustainably.
“The research we produce here will be analysed by our team of international shark scientists,” says Sprake. The hope is that the papers written, based on this research, will be able to inform local and international legislation and policies on shark conservation. This forms a significant part of Projects Abroad's Global Shark Campaign, which aims to raise awareness in local communities when it comes to protecting sharks.
According to Sprake, Projects Abroad has been running a similar programme in Fiji since January this year with great success. “It is vital that we drive shark conservation globally,” says Tamzyn Zweig of SASC. “As apex predators, sharks take much longer to breed than smaller fish species, we are depleting their numbers faster than they can reproduce. Sharks keep the entire, delicate ocean ecosystem balanced, and without them, everything else collapses.”
Photos courtesy of SASC
