Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Eli: well said - again!

Kesennuma - this is a local fishery and thus not covered by CITES unless the products get sold abroad, and these Sharks have not been finned - source.

Please read this post by Eli.

He is of course correct.
The problem for Sharks is not finning that is essentially a (valid) animal welfare but not a conservation issue - the animals are increasingly being landed whole for processing, and the problem is thus primarily overfishing coupled with all the other issues effecting marine biodiversity. And faced with realities on the ground, the principal one obviously being human overpopulation, the ultimate solution can only consist in advocating sustainability as prohibition is not rational and will simply not fly.

Watch his video - he knows what he's talking about.



And yes conservation has to happen locally.
CITES listing is great and will undoubtedly have an effect on IUU by requiring the establishment of a transparent paper trail - but it needs to be flanked by adequately defined, legislated, implemented and enforced management plans at the national and supranational level.
And if done smartly, enforcement may be easier and cheaper than generally assumed..

Tourism?
Alas, projects like ours (thanks for the h/t!) will always remain small-scale and not resolve the big issues. But at the local level, they do make a huge difference - economically but especially, for those individual Sharks whose lives are being spared!
As a very tangible example, the Fiji Shark Corridor and the MPAs and dive sites within its reach are currently the only bulwark against the observed drastic increase in coastal Shark fishing after government did announce that it was not going to implement the Shark Sanctuary.

Anyway, bravo Eli - keep those thoughts coming!

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