Palau creates world's first shark sanctuary

The tiny Pacific nation of Palau has created the world's first shark sanctuary. Palau's President, Johnson Toribiong made the announcement during Friday's session of the UN General Assembly.

The newly created sanctuary will protect over 130 species facing extinction is the Pacific, including Great Hammerheads, Leopard Sharks, and Oceanic Whitetip Sharks reports the Telegraph. 100 million sharks are killed each year with half of the world's oceanic sharks at risk of extinction. The creation of the Palau sanctuary which includes it's exclusive economic zone that extends 200 miles from it's coastline, will protect an area of 230,000 square miles, roughly the size of France says BBC News. President Toribiong also called for a global ban on shark-finning, the process of catching sharks, cutting off their fins and throwing the rest of the fish, still alive, back into the ocean to die. The fins are prized throughout Asia and in particular, China, for use in sharks fin soup and supposed medicines.

Sifu Renka

Shark fin soup

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Palau is also among 20 seafaring nations that have voluntarily agreed to stop bottom trawling and President Toribiong has called on other nations to follow suit. Toribiong is counting on commercial fisherman to respect Palau's territorial waters as it will be difficult to patrol such a large area. The tiny country, with a population of only 21,000 has only one boat to patrol an area nearly the size of Texas says the Telegraph.