Starting Sunday, September 14, the trade in five species of sharks will get strictly regulated as the new United Nations-backed trade protections will go into effect.

Any international trade in specimens of five shark species - the porbeagle, the oceanic whitetip and three varieties of hammerhead sharks - will require to be accompanied by licenses and duly signed certificates confirming that the marine animals have been harvested legally as well as sustainably. The new, stricter regulations also apply to manta rays species.

The new rules were approved at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna & Flora (CITES) in Thailand last year.

Speaking on the new measure, CITES Secretary General John Scanlon said, "Regulating international trade in these shark and manta ray species is critical to their survival and is a very tangible way of helping to protect the biodiversity of our oceans."

The five shark species and the manta ray species have been elevated to Appendix II of the CITES code, which makes it mandatory for traders to have permits and certificates.

The measure is a significant step toward conservation of endangered species of sharks, which have been under intense pressure as the number of sharks killed for fins swelled drastically in the past few decades.

However some countries, including Canada, Denmark, Guyana, Yemen and Japan, have declared they will keep on fishing these species as they are not bound by the new regulations.