More Issues on the Sharks fins Campaign
Unlike many important Animal Campaigns, it must be noted that
there were no official Government Agencies or organisations
like CITES that was involved in the Anti Sharks fins Campaign.
It must also be pointed out that CITES has been and still is
the Gold Standard, as far as conservation of endangered animals
are concerned. CITES currently lists 3 sharks species in their
Appendix 2 (see Reference 1).
So how did the Sharks fins Campaign came into being? WildAid
is the organization responsible for starting the Anti Sharks
Fins Campaign. It started with the Shark Conference 2000 in
Hawaii. The campaign is financed with a US$40 million (some
environmentalists say US$200million) grant from the Barbara
Delano Foundation, the founder of whom is the grand daughter
of the Upjohn pharmaceutical company (see Reference 2 ). It
is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the Barbara Delano
Foundation but suffice it is to point out that the pharmaceutical
industry is itself under attack for their research from Animal
Rights Activists.
As stated in an earlier article, most of the world’s sharks
are caught by mainly 20 countries, (many in the European Union
& North America) taking as much as 80% of the total world’s
catch. The sharks harvested are prized for their meat but often,
also as a bycatch in pelagic fisheries,for example the porbeagle
shark and the spiny dogfish cited in the june issue of the Malaysian
Nature Society newsletter.These sharks have been harvested by
fishermen in temperate waters for ages.(see Wikepedia &
Florida Museum of History reference link). Their fins happened
to be a valuable by product. It is curious therefore to use
these two shark species to support the Shark fins Campaign.
Surely, it would be more appropriate to take the campaign to
the consumers of the porbeagle shark and spiny dogfish!
The IUCN 2006 list also includes two other sharks, the Oceanic
White Tip (Carchahinus longimanus) and the Angel shark. The
former species, while again offering valuable fins, is in decline
because it is caught as a bycatch in tuna and other oceanic
fisheries (see Florida Museum of Natural History link).
Eugene Lapointe*, the President of IWMC World Conservation
Trust ( a coalition of scientists, and government bodies ) pointed
out that “Save the Shark” Campaign was launched ignoring
facts and that “the anti-soup activists lace their
campaign rhetoric aimed at an ill-informed Western audience
with innuendoes that play to the anti-Asian sentiment and their
audience's ignorance of Asian cultural practices.”
Further, he stated emphatically that “with the exception of
latent or overt bias by those who condemn any cultural practice
or tradition that differs from their own, there is nothing intrinsically
wrong with consuming shark fin soup.”
(See Reference 2 & 6).
Indeed, there are many species of commercial fishes that are
more endangered than sharks. Cod fish, wild Salmon, sturgeon
(for which caviar is obtained and the fish discarded ) is but
just a few species in this example. In conclusion, a nascent
environmental movement like ours cannot afford to use selective
information or a ‘holier than thou’ attitude to highlight environmental
concerns.
*Eugene Lapointe is a former Secretary General of CITES
Below are some of the links for gathering more information about
sharks and the fins campaign:
1) http://www.cites.org/eng/disc/species.shtml
2) IWMC President, Eugene Lapointe
http://www.iwmc.org/sharks/000729-1.htm
3)Florida Museum of Natural History http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/Porbeagle/Porbeagle.html
4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiny_Dogfish
5)IUCN list: http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/search-basic
6)Giam Choo Hoo “Sharks Fins Soup-Eat without Guilt” Singapore
Straits Times(1st December,2006)
To comment on this article, email:
cheah_optometrist@yahoo.com
*********************************************************************
|
