Global trade responses to shark finning regulations
Echelle S. Burns · Sara Orofino · Kaiwen Wang · Darcy Bradley · Nidhi G. D’Costa · Leonardo Manir Feitosa · Laurenne Schiller · Boris Worm · Jessica A. Gephart · Gavin G. McDonald
期刊Nature Communications / Nat Commun
类型Article
发表2026-07-31 (online)
卷期页17(1): 6821
收录2026-10-09
被浏览…
关键词shark finningshark fin tradewildlife tradefisheries policyexports and importsdomestic consumptioncausal inference
标签—
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.

@article{burns2026,
author = {Echelle S. Burns and Sara Orofino and Kaiwen Wang and Darcy Bradley and Nidhi G. D’Costa and Leonardo Manir Feitosa and Laurenne Schiller and Boris Worm and Jessica A. Gephart and Gavin G. McDonald},
title = {Global trade responses to shark finning regulations},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
volume = {17},
number = {1},
pages = {6821},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-75625-1},
publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media LLC},
}· END ·