Well said!
But first, watch this.
And here are Gary Stoke's comments.
They very much echo what I posted quite a while ago - this with the difference that back then, I was highly skeptical of the various grassroots initiatives in Asia, and could not have foreseen the effects of the Chinese crackdown on corruption. Now I stand partly corrected - although upon seeing that enormous amount of fins it appears clear that the fin trade may be reeling but is not about to simply vanish anytime soon. And of course the other drivers for the persistent astounding Shark mortality continue, meaning that the fight is far from over.
But I'm digressing as always.
All I really wanted to say is bravo Gary!
4 comments:
The numbers are shocking, and a bit misleading at the same time. Some people may be led to believe that Singapore has some epic shark diving potential seeing as the city is listed second in the export leagues. It would come as no surprise that a lot of the product exported through Singapore is imported from the immediate vicinity such as Indonesia and Malaysia before heading east from the city itself.
Good point - thanks for clarifying!
The video is incisive and powerful. I will share asap.
To me the crux of the question remains in the Demand: it's the same with rhino horn, ivory, etc - if you don't have users, eventually you won't have suppliers.
So I find the argument against Supply a bit silly. But don't get me wrong: it is the ECONOMIC argument against supply that I find silly.
So the Supply argument that I find interesting is the following: people in the "West" should be brave enough to address their own Supply chain of sharks, instead of just bashing the Asian consumer, not to solve the problem but to gain argumentative authority: Yes, the Asian consumer needs to be educated, namely the Gen Y and below, but the West cannot be taken seriously in their patronizing of the East if they don't press their own governments to stop supply.
How can a (say) Kiwi NGO activist go to China and complain about soup when he hasn't yet been able to stop his own country folks from fishing?
So I guess my point is that the issue with pressing Western governments to stop supply is actually less about the physical supply itself, and more about the assertion of argumentative authority in the discussions about Demand.
Indeed, there is an ethical/argumentative component in this.
But there's another side to this story, i.e. that this is a supply limited fishery where demand vastly outstrips supply (like also E.g ivory or Tuna - and contrary to e.g. whaling).
In those scenarios the demand would have to drop by a very large margin before there is an effect on the ground = in this specific case, a reduction of Shark fishing.
Thankfully, we have some indications that this is already happening, likely because a drop in Shark fin prices has made fishing for Sharks less economically attractive.
But IMO the demand for Shark products will never completely go away.
Therefore it DOES make sense to try and address overfishing where the fishing happens. i.e. on the supply side that will ultimately bear the ecological (and economical!) consequences of those severely depleted Shark populations.
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