Important shark, ray habitats in India are still unprotected

While India has expanded legal protections for sharks and rays, key breeding, nursery, and feeding habitats remain vulnerable.
A new study has identified 11 Important Shark and Ray Areas in the Indian waters and found that many fall outside existing marine protected areas.
Meeting global biodiversity targets will require protecting suitable habitats, efficient fisheries management, stronger policies and enforcement, marine researchers note.

For more than 400 million years, sharks have survived on Earth, outlasting dramatic climatic shifts and multiple mass extinctions. But since 1970, the global abundance of sharks and rays has reduced by 71%. During the same period, fishing pressure doubled, and shark and ray catches tripled. Unabated extraction and the destruction of key nursery and feeding grounds have pushed many populations of sharks and their relatives, rays and chimaeras, into steep decline. Today, more than three-quarters of these species are threatened with extinction.

According to a 2021 study, India is the world’s second-largest shark-fishing nation, occupying a critical position in the future of shark and ray conservation. Yet many of the country’s existing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) exclude key habitats of these species, which can limit the effectiveness of current conservation efforts, finds a new study, published in Biodiversity and Conservation.

“This study highlights that new efforts are needed to ensure that sharks and rays also receive adequate protection, just like sea turtles, dolphins, and so on,” says Divya Karnad, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter and an author of the study.

Scalloped Hammerhead Sharks at Sasson Dock, Mumbai. Image by Raju Kasambe via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). — Scalloped hammerhead sharks at Sasson Dock, Mumbai. Image by Raju Kasambe via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Mismatched conservation targets and reality

The study maps Important Shark and Ray Areas (ISRA), a framework by the IUCN Species Survival Commission Shark Specialist Group, to identify habitats essential for the survival of sharks, rays, and chimaeras. ISRAs are discrete areas where these species occur regularly or predictably and which play a critical role in their ecology. These may include breeding grounds, nursery habitats, feeding areas, migration corridors, resting sites, or regions supporting threatened and range-restricted species.

Researchers assessed ISRAs across the Bay of Bengal, Southeast Asia, and the Northwest Pacific to characterise their extent, ecological significance, and conservation relevance. They mapped 11 ISRAs across Indian waters on the Bay of Bengal side. Their analysis found that many of these ecologically important habitats fall outside the current protected area network.

“A very small percentage of our MPAs meet the criteria to conserve sharks and rays. India’s MPAs pre-date the idea of ISRAs. It is not surprising that the overlap is quite small,” Karnad says.

India has made several policy advances in shark conservation in the last two decades. In 2001, the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 added 10 shark and ray species to its protected schedules. A ban on shark fin exports followed in 2015. Today, 26 species receive legal protection. However, researchers emphasise that species-level protections alone cannot safeguard populations if their critical habitats remain vulnerable.

Ecological requirements of sharks and rays are rarely considered when MPAs are designated. Limited knowledge of habitat use and movement patterns further widens the mismatch between protected area boundaries and the habitats where these species feed, breed, and seek refuge.

“Most Indian MPAs do not cover a wide range of ocean habitats. They are either close to islands or mangroves. Our other nearshore and deep-ocean habitats, by and large, lack protection under the MPA designation,” says Karnad.

Milk sharks in Mangalore. Image by Karunakar Rayker via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

From mapping to efficient management

While the identification of an Important Shark and Ray Area does not confer legal protection, it can serve as an evidence-based roadmap to guide marine spatial planning, fisheries management, and future conservation decisions.

“Identifying ISRAs helps us locate critical habitats, but that doesn’t mean every site should become a fully protected marine area. Conservation decisions must be aligned with the needs of other marine species, the livelihoods of local communities and the realities of how these areas are used,” says Trisha Gupta, a conservation scientist at the Zoological Society of London.

India’s marine conservation goals

As countries work to meet the 30×30 target of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), ISRAs serve as a reminder that conservation cannot be measured by mere boundaries sketched on digital maps. The findings suggest that it is important for policymakers to look at whether suitable habitats are being conserved rather than how much of the ocean is being protected.

According to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), India has designated 130 MPAs across coastal states and islands, as well as 106 coastal and marine sites as Important Coastal and Marine Biodiversity Areas (ICMBAs).

India is also a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity and previously committed to protecting at least 10% of its marine waters under Aichi Target 11. Yet, according to the study, no Asian jurisdiction, including India, has achieved that target.

The study estimates that less than 1% of Indian waters are currently legally protected.

“Unlike terrestrial spaces, where there’s patrolling, surveillance, research, conservation intervention and more, India’s MPAs have not received the same attention,” says Gupta. “In spaces where attention is growing, unfortunately, much of it is on expanding tourism and development rather than managing these marine ecosystems sustainably.”

Globally, progress towards safeguarding marine and coastal habitats has been slow. According to the UNEP’s Protected Planet Report from 2024, 17.6% of the world’s land and inland waters and 8.4% of marine and coastal areas are currently protected. To achieve the 30×30 goal, countries will need to bring an additional marine area larger than the entire Indian Ocean under protection by 2030. But researchers are sceptical about how such targets will meaningfully translate into conservation.

Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park, a marine protected area in Andaman Islands. Image by Nilanjan pathak via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). — Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park, a marine protected area in Andaman Islands. A recent study estimates that less than 1% of Indian waters are currently legally protected. Image by Nilanjan Pathak via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

“So far, I have not seen any scientific publication explaining which 30% of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) should be protected,” says Mayuresh Gangal, a researcher at Nature Conservation Foundation, not associated with this study. “And what ecological, conservation, and fisheries benefits protecting that 30% is likely to deliver — which species are going to benefit, by how much, and which ecosystem functions are likely to benefit, and by how much.”

For marine species, conservation success will depend not only on identifying and protecting important habitats, but also on translating that protection into effective fisheries management, stronger policies, and stricter enforcement.

Alongside integrating ISRAs into national and regional marine spatial planning and biodiversity strategies, the study also recommends improvement in fisheries management, and establishing long-term monitoring programmes in ISRAs to support adaptive management.

Banner image: Scalopped hammerhead shark. Representative image. Image by Kris Mikael Krister via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).