Fabian Wanner

Dear Sir/Lady,

with great interest I read the draft of shark plan 2 and definitely see a lot of improvements over shark plan 1. However, to my understanding the current shark crisis does not allow for measures which reduce or stop shark finning.

What needs to be done is to ban intentional shark fishing completely. In some parts of the Australian waters Hammerheads and other species of sharks are locally extinct or nearly so and the same will happen in other parts of Australia if no major measures are taken. In the situation that the shark populations are in now, every individual shark is of vital importance to not only avoid extinction but also give them a chance to recover.

As long as the trade in shark products is allowed illegal fishing will continue even if fishing is prohibited. This implies that to protect Australian shark populations the use of shark products also has to be banned.

This also makes sense from an economical point of view. Many tourists come to Australia to dive with sharks, which helps the local communities, the dive organisers and the country as a whole economically. Banning shark fishing and shark products will set a massive example and will ensure that more tourists will come to Australia for their holidays. Some recent research has shown that a shark is worth a lot more alive than dead.

Finally, to protect sharks and let their populations recover, no take zones around critical shark habitat, for example that of Grey Nurse sharks, need to be constructed.

Please make Australia a safe haven for sharks similar to that of Palau, the Maledives, Honduras and Hawaii and set an example for other countries in the world to follow the Austrlian way.

Thank you very much
Kind Regards
Fabian Wanner