A major victory for shark conservation has been won for the Red Sea. After years of pressure from environmental groups and marine conservationists, Egypt has prohibited shark fishing in the Red Sea, which is one of the most important marine ecosystems on Earth.
The decision follows years of campaigning by the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association (HEPCA), whose efforts helped bring international attention to the destruction caused by the shark-fin trade. The organisation’s work culminated in a decree that finally gave legal force to protections that had existed largely on paper.
For decades, sharks in the Red Sea occupied a strange legal limbo. Egypt had signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 1973, joining more than one hundred countries in recognising the need to protect threatened wildlife. Many shark species in the Red Sea were considered endangered or vulnerable, yet Egyptian fishing regulations did not specifically mention sharks. As a result, fishermen catching and selling sharks often escaped prosecution, despite the international agreements intended to protect them.
The new law changes that reality.
The global shark-fin trade
Behind the destruction of sharks worldwide lies one of the most wasteful wildlife industries on Earth: the shark-fin trade.
Shark fins are primarily used in shark-fin soup, a luxury dish long associated with status and wealth in parts of Asia. Because the fins are far more valuable than the meat, fishermen target sharks solely for their fins. In many fisheries, sharks are hauled aboard, their fins sliced off, and the still-living animals thrown back into the sea to die slowly from blood loss, suffocation, or predation.
An estimated tens of millions of sharks are killed each year for the fin trade. The scale is so immense that many shark populations have collapsed globally. Oceanic whitetip sharks, scalloped hammerheads, great hammerheads, and silky sharks—all species in high demand by the shark fin trade, and associated with the Red Sea—have suffered catastrophic declines across much of their range.
Sharks are especially vulnerable because they reproduce slowly. Unlike many fish species, sharks take many years to mature, produce relatively few young after a very long gestation period, and usually require years or decades to recover from heavy fishing pressure. When large sharks disappear, entire marine ecosystems can change in unpredictable ways.
Why the Red Sea matters
The Red Sea is internationally famous among divers for its shark populations. Hammerheads, oceanic whitetips, tiger sharks, threshers, silky sharks, and reef sharks once flourished along its reefs and offshore drop-offs.
The region is biologically unique. Isolated and unusually warm, the Red Sea hosts coral reefs that are among the most heat-tolerant in the world—reefs that may prove critically important as climate change devastates coral ecosystems elsewhere.
Sharks are essential to maintaining the balance of these reef systems. As apex predators, they influence the distribution and behaviour of prey species, helping to stabilise marine food webs. Their disappearance can trigger cascading ecological effects that impoverish the region.
Yet, despite their ecological importance, sharks in the Red Sea became targets of commercial exploitation.
The shark-fin industry in the Red Sea
The Red Sea’s shark-fin trade grew secretly over many years. Fins obtained from Egyptian waters were reportedly exported into international Asian markets, where dried fins could command extremely high prices. In coastal communities, shark fishing became increasingly attractive because a single set of fins is worth far more than traditional fish catches. The shark-fin trade has made sharks the most lucrative prey for fishermen.
Although reliable statistics are difficult to obtain—illegal and unreported fishing is highly successful and remains widespread—conservationists and divers documented clear declines in shark sightings in several areas of the Red Sea.
Particularly troubling was the targeting of species that aggregate predictably around reefs and offshore pinnacles. Scalloped hammerheads, for example, gather in schools at certain sites, making them easy to massacre. Oceanic whitetips, once common around dive boats in parts of the Egyptian Red Sea, also declined sharply.
The trade was driven not only by local fishermen but by international demand. As shark populations collapsed in other regions, fishing pressure expanded into remaining strongholds, including the Red Sea.
A living shark is worth more than a dead shark
One of the strongest arguments for shark protection in Egypt is economic. The Red Sea supports a world-famous dive tourism industry that attracts visitors from across the globe. Divers travel specifically to encounter sharks in their natural habitat, generating ongoing income for hotels, dive boats, restaurants, guides, and coastal communities.
A living shark produces tourism revenue year after year. A dead shark brings in money only once.
Countries around the world are increasingly recognising that shark ecotourism is often far more valuable than shark fishing. In places where sharks are protected, dive tourism has become a major economic asset, while simultaneously encouraging marine conservation.
Egypt’s decision therefore represents not only an environmental measure, but also an investment in the future of Red Sea tourism.
A shift in public attitudes
Public perception of sharks has also begun to change. For decades, sharks were portrayed as dangerous predators, leading many people to view their destruction with indifference. But growing scientific understanding has revealed sharks to be intelligent, ecologically essential animals whose behaviour is far more complex than popular mythology suggests.
Researchers now recognise that each shark is an individual, and that they are conscious, sentient creatures with complex behaviour and cognition. Divers who spend long periods observing sharks report that the animals are cautious, perceptive, and highly responsive to their surroundings.
As awareness grows, public support for shark conservation has finally expanded worldwide.
Enforcement will determine success
Passing laws is only the beginning. Effective enforcement remains the real challenge.
Illegal fishing, corruption, inadequate monitoring, and weak penalties have undermined shark protections in many countries. If Egypt’s new decree is to succeed, authorities will need to monitor fishing activity carefully, prevent illegal fin exports, and support sustainable alternatives for coastal communities that depend on shark fishing income.
Scientific monitoring and international cooperation will all play important roles. Still, the new law marks an important turning point.
At a time when shark populations are in free-fall across the globe, the Red Sea may yet remain a refuge for some of the ocean’s most magnificent predators. Egypt’s decision demonstrates that conservation pressure, public awareness, and determined environmental advocacy can produce real change.
For the sharks of the Red Sea, it may be a desperately needed second chance.
Ethologist Ila France Porcher, author of Yes, Fish Feel Pain, The True Nature of Sharks and six other books on wildlife behaviour, spent 15 years closely observing fish and shark behaviour in Tahiti, resulting in several scientific papers. Her work, which has been featured on Shark Week, in scientific discussions and in international media, is based on decades of first-hand wildlife observations and focuses on individuals and intelligence, challenging traditional views of animal minds.
