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Shame on You: Shark Finning

Video created by OceaNEnvironment about the senseless killing of sharks for their fins. Special message for Alibab.com - who serves as a e-commerce platform for the trade of shark fins.

In 1997, we found shark fins in stacks of 1 ½ metre high in back street shop in Male, the capital island of the Maldives. Interviews with the traders exposed their buyers are from Singapore. After extensive lobbying with diving agencies, dive schools the Maldives authority announced protection for sharks in all the tourist atolls in 1998. Shark finning became illegal. This year in April, a few divemasters working on safari boats emailed me that the fishermen were seen fishing for sharks at dive sites such as Fish Head and Maaya Thila. I requested for photographic evidence, which sadly I acquired today.

The Shark fin trade MUST BE STOPPED; countries such as Maldives and Indonesia must impose great environmental laws to protect their ecological environment. However, due to the expanse of water in the Maldives and Indonesia, effective policing is difficult. Resources are also limited. As I have said many times before, to protect sharks, we must first destroy the shark fin trade. Simple economic principle, as long as there is the demand, especially lucrative dollars from traders in Singapore, the fishermen will continue to fish for sharks. Don't blame the fishermen; he is poor, he is possibly living from hand to mouth, his income a mere fraction compared to the traders and restaurateurs in Singapore and Hong Kong.

If the conservationists, divers, NGOS and media are serious about protecting sharks they must boycott all restaurants that promote gourmet shark fin soup; they must lobby to respective customs departments to make the import of shark fins illegal, perhaps punishable with extensive fines and imprisonment. Likewise, media that claim to be supportive of protecting the ocean environment should regularly publish a black list of restaurants serving shark fin soup. If the so call RSPCA is supposedly set up to protect cruelty to animals, they should also take a stand lobbying for total ban in the shark fin trade. Otherwise, all conservation effort is futile, preaching only to the converts. Meanwhile divers, nature and animal lovers, I call on you to go up to someone you see consuming shark fin soup and tell him/her loudly "SHAME ON YOU!" Michael AW

OceanNEnvironment