Bonn, 7 December 2007 – As a result of the alarming decline of shark populations world wide, a CMS meeting to further international cooperation on migratory sharks will be held 11-13 December in the Seychelles. Representatives of more than forty ranges states across the world will attend the meeting, which is supported by the Government of Seychelles, the Australian Department of the Environment and Water Resources, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the United Kingdom, the German Ministry for the Environment and CMS.
Although sharks have been roaming the seas for millions of years, they have come under enormous pressure from human-induced threats. The most important of these threats are overfishing, bycatch, habitat degradation and collisions with vessels.
By 2006, three shark species (Basking Shark Cetorhinus maximus, Whale Shark Rhincodon typus and Great White Shark Carcharodon carcharias) were listed in the Appendices of CMS, CITES and IUCN. CMS Resolution 8.5 and Recommendation 8.16 reflect the urgent need for action by national and regional management authorities to address threats to migratory sharks.
This meeting is a first step for CMS in fulfilling this mandate. It will examine the conservation status of migratory sharks and options for international cooperation. The objective of the meeting is to reach consensus on possible instruments of international cooperation under CMS among the key range states, fishing and exporting countries under CMS，which would then be developed under CMS for further consideration by governments.
Before setting off for the meeting, CMS Executive Secretary Robert Hepworth said: "Sharks are a particularly vulnerable group of species, and many of them are migratory. A key objective is to increase the current conservation effort, which I think most key stakeholders would agree falls well short of what is now required. The CMS Secretariat is anxious to promote more active conservation by the key fishing states. FAO already has a major programme for sharks, and we hope that, like CITES, we can work with FAO in a way which helps to bring fisheries and conservation objectives into greater convergence. Above all, we need to re-energize shark conservation efforts, and next week's meeting should achieve that as a minimum."

（引自www.cms.int    2007年12月7日）