There Are Better Ways to Save Sharks—Here's How | National Geographic

My name is Jess Graham, and I am a shark researcher and responsible marine conservationist. Lots of hammerhead sharks, frisky seals, huge yellowfin tuna, massive snapper—I've never seen anything like it! I'm studying the effectiveness of marine reserves on wide-ranging animals, and the first thing I did was I dived into the policies.

I wanted to look at the laws that were actually outlined to do this so I quote unquote protection. But unfortunately, one of the very, very first things I uncovered is that while we think there are, you know, all these protected areas and all these places, in fact, a lot of these don't have any laws at all; they were never written. We really need to follow through, and we really need to make sure that these laws not only exist, but they exist to the effect that they are protecting both the species and think about the people that utilize that area, because they need to be enforceable.

And if they're not enforceable, then they don't work. Then what's the point? To me, what's key about creating impactful policies and ocean conservation is actually first understanding why you're creating the policy. Are we creating it for a political win, or are we creating it because a species or area actually needs protection?

I like to refer to that as responsible conservation. So, I feel like as conservationists, we need to be more responsible about the policies that we do create. But then on top of that, that responsibility doesn't stop once the announcement is made. It means that we continue to show up and ensure that the locals actually buy in.

Then they will then keep the gas on their politicians to ensure that those are actually upheld. It's awesome when we go out and we make these commitments to save a species, but if there's no backbone there, then it's really kind of useless, right? And that backbone mattered to me, whether or not, you know, the numbers of sharks or the numbers of fish that we said we were protecting, if they weren't being protected, then I felt like a fraud.

And it doesn't sound glamorous, but to me, it's really exciting and fun. It feels like exploration in a way, because you're trying to look at things through the lens of someone who's trying to break that law, and you look for loopholes and you look for ways that they can be improved, so that you can improve the lives of the animals that need it and for the people who are relying on those resources. [Music]