The Green Sawfish (Pristis zijsron) has low intrinsic rates of population increase, making its resilience to fishing pressure low and its recovery from depletion slow. While the current population size and historic abundance is unknown, it is suspected as having declined in all of its range states. In Australian waters, its range has been well documented to have contracted significantly. Like all sawfishes, the toothed rostrum and demersal occurrence makes Green Sawfish extremely susceptible to capture in gillnets and demersal trawl nets. Historically, the population has been negatively affected by commercial net and trawl fisheries which operate in inshore areas throughout most of its range, the cumulative impacts of which have led to population declines. This species is now protected by no-take status in some range states (e.g. Australia, Bahrain, India), is listed on Appendix I of CITES, and is protected by some areas that are closed to fishing; but these actions alone will not be sufficient to ensure its survival in most regions. Despite a lack of quantitative data to support declines, available information indicates that populations of Green Sawfish are considerably rarer than historically across its entire range. Australia has some of the last remaining viable populations of Green Sawfish in the world, albeit at significantly reduced levels. Declines in the population are suspected to exceed 80% over three generation lengths (~44 yr), and it is possible that there has been localised extinction in a number of range states due to intensive fishing, reducing its extent of occurrence, and supporting its listing as Critically Endangered.