The IUCN/SSC Shark Specialist Group
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A 6.000 Km2 Coastal Sanctuary For Sharks And Rays In Mauritania, West Africa
The Banc d'Arguin National Park (PNBA), situated in Mauritania (West Africa) was created in 1976. It is one of the largest marine protected areas on the continent with 6.000 Km2 of shallow waters including various habitats such as sea grass beds, islands, sandy plains and mudflats.
The park is utilized by half of the palearctic migrating birds (from Northern Europe and Siberia), with more than 2.5 millions birds stopping every winter to feed there.
The PNBA protects approximately half of the Banc d'Arguin and Baie du Lévrier coastal ecosystem, a major natural tool for the reconstitution of halieutic resources at a regional scale.
The Imraguen, small scale fishermen living on the coast, traditionally share their time between fishing for grey mullet and the breeding camels in the Sahara desert. They inherited the wooden sailing boats of the Canarian fishermen in the 1950's. They stay year-round in the villages, developing new fishing activities, looking first for sciaenids, and then, in the mid 1980's, with the global shark fins demand, for sharks, guitarfishes and sawfishes.
The sawfishes are locally extinct, and the shark populations dramatically decreased during the 1990's. The Imraguen are the only people with authorization to fish within the park. A maximum of 110 wooden sailing boats are allowed with motors prohibited in the marine waters of the PNBA.
In 1997, the International Scientific Council of the Banc d'Arguin asked the PNBA to initiate a shark conservation project. Funded by the International Foundation for the Banc d'Arguin - FIBA, the project was started in 98, studying the exploited populations of sharks and rays by monitoring the landings in the Imraguen villages.
The first results show that the Banc d'Arguin plays an important role in the reproduction of numerous coastal species. Local fishermen targeted pregnant females of some species (Rhizoprionodon acutus, Paragaleus pectoralis, Dasyatis marmorata, )and only juvenile individuals of other species (Sphyrna lewini, Ginglymostoma cirratum, Carcharhinus brevepinna, Carcharhinus limbatus). Other species were also heavily targeted, such as Rhinobatos cemiculus, with the age structure showing a strong reduction of the proportion of adults. The total annual catch was around 1.500 tons until 1998, before the first limits were placed on shark fishing.
Adopting a participative approach, by the end of 1998 the FIBA and the PNBA set a concerted approach based on scientific results with the fishermen and the fishing administration. Shark fishing limitation measures were negotiated and decided upon during annual concertation workshops jointly with the fishermen.
During the same time, FIBA funded projects helped the fishermen living in the PNBA to develop new fishing activities. These activities included the targeting of teleosts and better organization of their activities - processing fish locally and allowing credits to the local cooperatives to buy cars and to commercialize production (the villages are 250 km from the market, in the desert, and this function was before appropriated by other economic actors). The local economy has improved while the exploitation of sharks has lost part of its economical importance for the majority of fishermen.
The 20th of December 2003, a final agreement was been signed to definitively halt all targeted shark and ray fishing activities within the PNBA. Rhizoprionodon acutus, Sphyrna lewini and Rhinoptera marginata may still be taken as bycatch in the nets used for the sciaenid fishery. However, all other remaining species are protected within the PNBA. The management of the sciaenid fishery will reduce the by-catches by identifying and closing the periods and the zones where the by-catch are more frequently taken.
The PNBA is one of the leading parks among the marine protected areas involved in the regional marine conservation program (UICN, WWF, FIBA, Wetlands international). As proposed by the sub-regional plan of action for the conservation and the management of sharks (Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde Islands) (also funded by FIBA), all of the MPA's of the sub-region should become shark non-fishing zones in the near future.
Shark fishing is already forbidden in some small MPAs of the sub-region : Joćo-Vieira Poilćo Marine Turtles National Park, Orango National Park, Cacheu Mangal National Park and Urok Islands Communautary Management Area in Guinea Bissau ; Sine Saloum National Park, Bamboung Bolon Marine Reserve, Madeleine Islands National Park in Senegal.
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