Longitude 181 association launches the program « Mediterranean Great White» in order to preserve the great white shark in the Mediterranean Sea

More than 40 shark species live in the Mediterranean Sea, from the little smooth-hound to the more than 10 meters basking shark. As all other fishes, these sharks were formerly plentiful. Today, their populations have dramatically dropped. Half of the species are threatened.

Longitude 181 association has launched the program* « Mediterranean Great White» in order to prevent the disappearance of the great white shark and the other species, and to preserve the ecological balance of the Mediterranean Sea. This program has 3 main targets : to improve the knowledge on  sharks biology and ethology, to raise the awareness among the general public and the governments on the critical state of sharks in the Mediterranean Sea, and to inform the fishermen so as to obtain their support for the setting up of measures of protection.

In order to raise awareness among the general public, Longitude 181 has created the collection « Sharks of the Mediterranean Sea to be protected », using original drawings and a synoptic presentation. The collection includes a poster which gathers all the 18 threatened sharks, and a set of 10 plastic cards for an easy identifying of those species. The first exchanges carried out last month during encounters with the Algerian fishermen show that this collection meets the goals fixed upon.

The poster on « Sharks of the Mediterranean Sea to be protected » is available in 4 languages: English, French, Spanish and Arabic.

The collection « Sharks of the Mediterranean Sea to be protected » can be downloaded through this link.

The essential support of all instances around the Mediterranean Sea

Algeria has been the first State to adopt the collection « Sharks of the Mediterranean Sea to be protected ». It has started to put them up in the Regional directions for fisheries, in the fishing schools, fish markets and fish shops.

But the preservation of sharks will be efficient only if it is effective throughout the Mediterranean Sea. So, poster and plastic cards have been presented at the 6th FAO Regional  Conference « Building a future for sustainable small-scale fisheries in the Mediterranean Sea » (Algiers – 7-9 March 2016). Most of the States representatives, international organizations and scientists who attended this conference showed their interest in these documents. Longitude 181 hopes that they will be broadly distributed in all the Mediterranean States.

International organizations, Governments, Institutes and NGOs of the Mediterranean Sea are invited to circulate the collection « Sharks of the Mediterranean Sea to be protected » in order to inform everybody on the critical state of sharks, and to make the sharks identification easier.

A better information and a larger awareness for a better preservation !

* « Mediterranean Great White» is a program launched by Longitude 181.
Longitude 181 is a French association whose aim is the conservation of the marine environment and the fair share of its resources. Longitude 181 campaigns rely on the International Guidelines for Responsible Diver launched in 2002.

Source : www.longitude181.org