- Summary
- Objectives
- Status
- Project Publications
Sharks are one of the most threatened group of species in the world. India is the third largest shark catching nation in the world. Hence, preventing the capture of sharks in India is crucial to global shark conservation. Policy has proved relatively ineffective in protecting India’s sharks, owing to the lack of effective monitoring and enforcement. In contrast, grassroots approaches that are inclusive of fishing communities have seen better results as pilot programmes. This project aims to reduce the fishing of critically endangered hammerhead sharks by promoting education among the general public and specific stakeholders as well as the use of market-based incentives to support fishermen in using sustainable fishing practices. In this project, we focus on increasing awareness on shark conservation among the general public and on educating the seafood consumers on how to choose seafood to support shark conservation.
1. Increasing the footprint of our engagement with restaurants.
2. Expanding our experiential awareness programmes for the general public.
3. Create a focused sustainable seafood curriculum for secondary school students and culinary institutions.
- A marine conservation curriculum, a six-week course for students of Grades 6–9 has been developed. While the curriculum was modeled around shark biology and conservation, our collaborators from the education system helped us tie in the curriculum to existing topics within the student’s geography, physics, chemistry and biology syllabi. This curriculum, and the assessment strategy that we devised to evaluate its effectiveness in improving students’ knowledge and attitudes, were vetted by a certified psychologist.
- We conducted six-week long education workshops for government school children at two after-school centres. The shark module was the central component that sparked interest in the species found along the Chennai coast, their behavior, habitat, and ecological importance. We used the online tool that we had developed earlier, i.e. our website Sharks of India, to bring the ocean into classrooms. This allowed students to explore the various species and their unique adaptations at their own pace.