Imposing bans on shark’s fin consumption will not ultimately address the threat of extinction they face, but a focus on encouraging sustainable fishing could, a few marine experts said on Thursday.
Though the views of the four-man panel at a seminar on the issue differed at various points, all of them — a member of a United Nations body on endangered species, a veteran shark researcher, an industry consultant and an animal rights activist — agreed that the threat of extinction hanging over sharks is a global problem that stems from the way fishing is carried out all over the world.
At the forum, which was organised by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies after several grocery chains in Singapore said they would no longer offer shark’s fin products on their shelves, veterinarian Giam Choo-Hoo argued that it made more sense to eat shark’s fin soup than not.
A committee member of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Giam said, “The truth is, 80 per cent of sharks are caught accidentally, so whether or not you eat shark’s fin is inconsequential — the sharks will still be caught.”
Citing statistics compiled from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Giam made a case for fisheries in developing countries, which catch about 70 per cent of the sharks that are picked up every year. They would, he added, by extension benefit more from the shark fishing industry than developed countries.
On the other end of the spectrum, Louis Ng, executive director of the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES) and who has pushed for a boycott of shark’s fin products, said, “The consensus is really that it (the shark industry today) is unsustainable.”
Explaining his support for a ban, he said, “I think we need to remember that this is a profit-driven industry. If profits remain the same, change will not come.”
Ng added that shark fin suppliers needed to feel the pinch of a fall in consumer demand before they could realise the need to commit to trading only with sustainable fisheries.
Misleading campaigns
In his speech at the seminar, Giam maintained that sharks are not in danger of extinction as out of the more-than-400 species of sharks that exist, only one species — the sawfish — is counted among the animals listed in CITES’s Appendix I, which bars the capture, sale and trade of any or all of their parts in any country.
He added that just a further three others — the Great White, the Hammerhead and the Basking sharks — are listed in Appendix II, which still permits the capture, sale and trade of their meat, provided doing so does not impact the welfare of their species.
He also stressed that “live finnning”, a term that refers to the act of cutting off a shark’s fin from its body while it is still alive and tossing the rest of its body back into the sea, is frequently exploited by shark activists around the world in their campaigns when in reality, that practice is condemned in the fishing industry.
Shark industry expert and consultant Hank Jenkins followed up on Giam’s argument with at least five instances from campaigns by WildAid and Shark Angels, among others, where scientific findings were manipulated or plucked from the air by seemingly “malicious” international animal rights activist organisations.
He also highlighted instances where pictures were either taken and described out of context, or even artificially manipulated, in the case of an image of a finless hammerhead shark vertically suspended underwater, from a campaign led by WildAid.
Push for sustainable fishing
Jenkins also made it clear that he was opposed to a complete ban to the sale and consumption of shark’s fins, saying that such a move would not attain its desired impact.
“Banning the trade in shark fins will result in wastage of the resource… and will not substantially reduce the overall numbers of sharks caught globally,” he said. “There is little doubt that many shark fisheries are either fully or over-exploited. The problem will not be resolved by imposing trade bans or the use of shark fins without also banning the consumption of shark meat in Europe, North America and elsewhere.”
Alongside shark researcher Steve Oakley, who has worked with and studied sharks in countries all over the world, Jenkins maintained that the best way to prevent shark populations from going extinct is by practicing sustainable shark fishing.
Oakley raised some examples of sustainable fishing in countries such as the U.S., which include the establishment of commercial quotas (for the total number of sharks that can be caught for sale and trade of their parts), as well as imposing time and area closures, so that fishing boats spend fewer hours catching sharks.
Despite the opposition that Oakley, Jenkins and Giam have to stopping shark’s fin consumption, Ng stands firm in his belief that temporarily boycotting consumption of the product will help to trigger action on part of the authorities in Singapore.
“We’re not calling for a complete ban indefinitely, but we’re saying let’s look at the stats, let the shark populations recover, do some proper management and let’s open the trade again only when it is certified sustainable,” he said.
Jenkins and Oakley both conceded that there is little Singapore can do to directly address the problem of fishing practices — one that they both stressed is a global one, not simply Asia, developed nation or China-specific — since it does not engage in fishing directly.
However, Oakley recommended that one thing Singapore’s government agencies such as the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority can implement is nation-to-nation trade contracts that require countries trading in shark’s fins with Singapore to have certifiably sustainable fisheries.
“Being realistic, we are not going to stop shark fishing all around the world in every country,” he said. “What does make sense is to ensure that international trade is regulated and controlled… we need management, we need regulations, it needs to be sustainable.”
He noted that Singapore is the world’s second-largest trading country for sharks, and it is in that area that the country can take steps to indirectly help solve the global problem.
“It’s very easy for Singapore to have agreements with countries which feel that they can supply sharks and other products sustainably which Singapore can then trade to wherever wants to buy them,” he said.
“The keyword here is 'sustainable'… it’s much easier to do on a country-to-country level.”
