Is it time for the UK to ban shark products?
Around the world nations are beginning to look at protecting sharks and the lead is being set, in many cases, by the smaller nations. They are setting up marine reserves and more importantly they are banning the trade in sharks in order to tackle the increasing shark fin trade. Surely the time has come for the UK to follow the nations of Palau, Northern Mariana Islands, Honduras, the Maldives and a number of US states in banning the trade of shark products.
UK bans shark finning but not trade.
At the moment the UK has a policy of banning shark finning in territorial water which has been in place since 2009. Shark finning is when the fins (the most valuable part of a shark) are removed at sea and the shark thrown back overboard still alive to either drown, starve to death or be predated on because it can not swim correctly without it’s fins.
While a European wide regulation banning shark finning was introduced in 2003 there were loop holes that allowed fishermen to continue finning as long as the weight of shark fins landed were not more than 5% of the total shark catch. It is thought that this loop hole enabled UK fisherrmen to land fins from hundreds of tonnes of sharks before the loopholes were closed in 2009.
In 20 years EU has become third largest supplier of shark fins to Hong Kong.
Sharks around the UK coast includes species such as shortfin mako, blue, smooth hammerheads and thresher sharks. They are still regularly caught and landed by fishermen although they can no be longer finned at sea. While the meat is used as food in the UK the fins invariably make their way to the markets of Asian countries. Over the last 20 years the EU has moved from being a negligible supplier of shark fins to Hong Kong to supplying over a third of all shark fins. Based on 2005 figures the UK is in the top 6 countries of the world for shark trading and exports joining countries such as Indonesia, Spain, the US, Japan and New Zealand.
The shark fin market is indiscriminate in the type of shark that it uses. A fin from a basking shark – a regular visitor to UK waters – once sold for $10,000. When you consume shark fin soup you can not tell whether the fin comes from a sustainable source (which is getting rarer as the annual trade fin trade hits $1 billion a year) or whether it comes from one of the most endangered shark species.
Banning trade in shark products only effective way of banning finning.
Countries who have recently announced new shark reserves have come to the conclusion that the only real way of effectively banning finning is to ban all trade in shark and shark products. When there’s a route to market for shark fins then while it’s easy to regulate control it’s much more difficult to enforce and to distinguish between legally landed shark fins and illegally landed finned sharks fins. A straight forward ban on shark products solves the problem.
Personally I like shark steaks, it’s probably my favourite fish. A meaty shark steak in a Thai hot chilli dressing is fabulous. But I would not be too concerned if I could not buy shark steaks because of a ban. There’s plenty of other fish in the sea – especially sustainable species. I’d just change over to another species. A ban on shark products would have minimal impact on the vast majority of people but would have an incredibly valuable impact on conserving sharks.
Chinese campaigns against shark fin soup.
It’s not just western green groups and conservationists that are calling for extra protection for sharks including bans of shark products. In China, the biggest market for shark fins, one of it’s most influential restaurant groups, the Jin Ding Xuan restaurant chain in Beijing, last year stopped selling shark fin soup to it’s customers, it’s no longer on the menu.
Chinese celebrities such as film star Jackie Chan, NBA player Yao Ming and actors Michelle Yeoh and Tony Leung are all campaigning for the banning of shark fin soup. Even a Chinese politician raised a proposal in the Chinese parliament calling for the banning of shark fin soup.
A ban offers maximum impact with minimal disruption.
There are somethings that a country can do that will have minimum impact but make a real difference in the quality of the environment and natural world. Banning the use of peat in garden products for example could be accomplished almost overnight instead of the slow lumbering attempt currently being made. Banning shark products is another.
The UK is an island nation, we have an incredibly diverse marine environment that needs to be protected and we should follow the lead of other nations who have introduced a ban on shark product trading – it’s the only guaranteed way to prevent illegal fins from entering the market.
External sites:
Sign the UK petition to ban trade in Shark fins in Britain.
