Global trade responses to shark finning regulations

2026/07/31 by Echelle S. Burns, Sara Orofino, Kaiwen Wang +7 · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Ichthyology and Marine Biology #Marine and fisheries research #Fish Biology and Ecology Studies

paper · doi:10.1038/s41467-026-75625-1

openalex publication_date 2026/07/31 · openalex created_date 2026/08/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Abstract Global shark mortality continues to rise despite increasing regulations aimed at limiting shark fishing and trade. Regulatory measures may influence shark product markets, but this relationship has been difficult to quantify because of fragmented and poorly resolved data. We present a global analysis evaluating the effects of domestic shark finning regulations on trade in shark products across 188 countries. Using causal inference methods and the Aquatic Resource Trade in Species database (2007–2020), we find weak and statistically insignificant effects of finning regulations on overall shark trade volumes. However, long-term trends suggest that countries adopting finning regulations tend to reduce exports, modestly increase imports, and maintain relatively stable domestic consumption. Our framework provides a broader approach for investigating the economic pathways and drivers of mortality associated with sharks and other traded wildlife species.

Citations

• Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects
• igraph enables fast and robust network analysis across programming languages
• Global shark fishing mortality still rising despite widespread regulatory change
• Ecological roles and importance of sharks in the Anthropocene Ocean
• Ecological erosion and expanding extinction risk of sharks and rays
• Retention Bans Are Beneficial but Insufficient to Stop Shark Overfishing

Discussions

• 🚨New paper in Nature Communications🚨! We find that shark finning regulations have little impact on the global trade of shark products in the short-term, but might lead to more noticeable changes sev [bsky, 4 points, 1 comments]