Shark fin trading in Costa Rica - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Shark fin trading in Costa Rica, or shark finning

Shark finning

Shark finning refers to the removal and retention of shark fins and the discarding of the rest of the fish. Shark finning takes place at sea so the fishers only have to transport the fins.Shark finning is widespread, and largely unmanaged and unmonitored...

, is an illegal practice in the country. It poses a serious problem with shark

Shark

Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....

populations and organized crime

Organized crime

Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

within Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

. The trade in Costa Rica is vigorously controlled by the Taiwanese mafia because of the high value of shark fins in restaurants in the Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim

The Pacific Rim refers to places around the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The term "Pacific Basin" includes the Pacific Rim and islands in the Pacific Ocean...

countries such as Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

and China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

where Shark fin soup

Shark fin soup

Shark fin soup is a popular soup item of Chinese cuisine usually served at special occasions such as weddings and banquets, or as a luxury item in Chinese culture. The shark fins provide texture while the taste comes from the other soup ingredients.There is controversy over the practice of shark...

can cost up to $100 a serving in top restaurants. Some 95% of shark fin trading activity in Costa Rica culminates in the docks of Puntarenas

Puntarenas

Puntarenas is the capital and largest city in the province Puntarenas, Costa Rica, at the Pacific coast. The eponymous and oddly shaped province has its largest section in the South, far from the capital.Some 100,000 live in the city and close towns...

on the western coast, notably Inversiones Cruz Dock and Harezan Dock, which are often privately run by the Taiwanese. The industry in Costa Rica took off from the 1970s as a result of the growth in demand from the emerging wealthy Tiger economies

Tiger Economy

A tiger economy is the economy of a country which undergoes rapid economic growth, usually accompanied by an increase in the standard of living. The term was initially used for Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan , and in the 1990s it was applied to the Republic of Ireland...

of the Asia-Pacific

Asia-Pacific

Asia-Pacific or Asia Pacific is the part of the world in or near the Western Pacific Ocean...

for shark fin as a delicacy. By the 1990s, the shark fin industry in Costa Rica had become one of the world's most important in shark finning, especially as a major cargo-unloading point for international fleets because of lax laws and government corruption in cracking down on the trade.

However, there is environmental awareness of the consequences of fin trade exploitation which could result in shark extinction. Prompted by WildAid

WildAid

WildAid is an international 501 NGO whose mission is to end the illegal wildlife trade. Rather than an issue of biology or culture WildAid views the illegal wildlife trade fundamentally as a matter of economics - of supply and demand....

’s campaigns, in East Asia

East Asia

East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

, high profile politicians and their kin, film personalities, industrial establishments and committed individuals took voluntary “No shark fin” pledge. In January 2011, it was reported that British chef Gordon Ramsay

Gordon Ramsay

Gordon James Ramsay, OBE is a Scottish chef, television personality and restaurateur. He has been awarded 13 Michelin stars....

and his TV crew were held at gunpoint and soaked with petrol when filming a documentary about the illegal trade in Costa Rica.

Practice

According to Ramsay, shark finning in Costa Rica is "A multi-billion dollar industry, completely unregulated. We traced some of the biggest culprits to Costa Rica. These gangs operate from places like forts, with barbed wire and gun towers." In response to poor incomes and pressure, local fisherman are forced into harvesting shark fins, despite only getting about one dollar per pound on an average, less than a third of its total retail value. Corrupt politicians are silenced with a fee to ignore government regulations. The practice involves sharks being caught by a horizontal drag line with many baited hooks, known as longline fishing. According to biologist Jorge Ballestero of the Costa Rican Sea Turtle Restoration Project (Pretoma) “Costa Rica has become intricately linked to this trade for two reasons: It has the biggest longliner fleet in the hemisphere, and it allows international vessels dedicated to the exploitation and trade of shark fins to land here.”

The Taiwanese mafia dominate the shark finning industry in Costa Rica, although Indonesian gangs also have a foothold in the market. The Taiwanese and Indonesian mafia operate private docks in the Puntarenas

Puntarenas

area, notably Inversiones Cruz Dock and Harezan Dock and several others where some 95% of all catches are brought in, transported by truck to San José

San José, Costa Rica

San José is the capital and largest city of Costa Rica. Located in the Central Valley, San José is the seat of national government, the focal point of political and economic activity, and the major transportation hub of this Central American nation.Founded in 1738 by order of Cabildo de León, San...

and flown mostly to Hong Kong

Hong Kong

. According to the Costa Rican customs adviser Omar Jiminez, at least three boats full of shark fins enter the ports in Puntarenas every week.Kaohsiung

Kaohsiung

Kaohsiung is a city located in southwestern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on the west. Kaohsiung, officially named Kaohsiung City, is divided into thirty-eight districts. The city is one of five special municipalities of the Republic of China...

in Taiwan

Taiwan

is one of the biggest ports in the world for importing shark fins. They are brought in from overseas and are placed out to dry in the sun on residential rooftops near the port.

However, it should be noted that various shark cartilage industries in the country exist, depending on the import of cartilages from other countries. Costa Rica is mentioned as one such country where a leading processing plant is said to be purchasing raw cartilages from any source in the world to carry out semi or primary processing before exporting it, particularly to the USA. The USA then markets it worldwide in the processed shark cartilage powder form, in four or five brand names.

History

In the 1970s, mass local and reef fishing off the Central America coasts had a profound effect on coastal shark populations throughout the Americas. FAO

Food and Agriculture Organization

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and...

initiated action in 1999 to introduce a “Voluntary Plan of Action for sharks.”

In 1982, the National Learning Institute of Costa Rica received technical support and financing from the Taiwanese government to modernize its fishing fleet according to Pretoma

PRETOMA

PRETOMA is a Costa Rican non-profit NGO that was founded in 1997.The group consists of biologists, naturalists, conservationists, and volunteers who are dedicated to protecting and conserving sea turtles in their natural marine habitats, while also promoting sustainable fishery policies...

. This had a major impact on the finning industry in Costa Rica, which subsequently took off in the 1980s (especially after 1986). Due to low shark populations on the coasts, the updated vessels could now venture further out to sea and use longline technology to greatly increase their catches. Meeting the increasing demand in the Tiger economies of the Pacific Rim countries for shark fins brought about their economic growth and increased wealth in the 1980s and 1990s. By the late 1990s, Costa Rica had become established as a major cargo-unloading point for international fleets and thus became a key component in the global finning industry.

In May 2003, a young Costa Rican Coast Guard official, Manuel Silva, reported the landing of a Taiwanese fishing vessel with 30 tons of shark fins on board. Not only were the Taiwanese vessels ignored by the four agencies charged with checking incoming cargos but the Costa Rican Fishing Institute (Incopesca) also failed to take action following his report.

In 2006/2007, Canadian director Rob Stewart

Rob Stewart (filmmaker)

Rob Stewart is an Canadian photographer and movie director/filmmaker, best known for making and directing the multi-award-winning movie Sharkwater.-Biography:...

went to Costa Rica and the Galapagos to shoot what he thought would be an innocent documentary after sharklife underwater in the film Sharkwater
Sharkwater
Sharkwater is a 2007 Canadian documentary film written and directed by Rob Stewart, who also narrates it. In the film, Stewart seeks to deflate current attitudes about sharks, and exposes how the voracious shark-hunting industry is driving them to extinction.Filmed in high definition video,...

. However, shortly into filming, they stumbled across the Taiwanese mafia, the illegal shark fin trade and, feared for their lives when chased by gunboats. They managed to secretly capture footage of the traders in the film.

Today, Costa Rica is one of the world's most important participants in the shark-fin trade.

Demand

In Hong Kong

Hong Kong

restaurants, where the market has traditionally been strong, Shark fin soup

Shark fin soup

can fetch up to $100 a serving in the top restaurants. However, the demand from Hong Kong natives has reportedly dropped, but this has been more than balanced by an increase in demand from the Chinese mainland, fueled by its growing economy and increased wealth, as the economic growth of China has put this expensive delicacy within the reach of a growing middle class. This increase in demand, combined with the importance of this top predator in the ocean, has the potential to significantly alter oceanic ecosystems. The high price of the soup means that is often used as a way to impress guests or at celebrations. Shark fin is also incorrectly perceived by some as having high nutritional value, as well as cancer and osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis also known as degenerative arthritis or degenerative joint disease, is a group of mechanical abnormalities involving degradation of joints, including articular cartilage and subchondral bone. Symptoms may include joint pain, tenderness, stiffness, locking, and sometimes an effusion...

fighting abilities. Based on information gathered from the Hong Kong trade in fins, the market is estimated to be growing by 5% a year. In 1998, China imported a reported 4,240 tonne

Tonne

The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...

s of shark fins worth US$24.7 million, but Costa Rica competed with Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, Hong Kong

Hong Kong

, Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

, Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

and Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

in providing for the Chinese market. In China, shark fins are increasingly being used in less extravagant items such as cakes, cookies, bread and even cat food.

In the South Asian region, use of shark cartilage in preparing soups is considered a health tonic. Hong Kong imports it from North and South American countries, particularly for use in either a cooked format or to prepare boiled soup, as a health fad, by mixing it with herbals supplements.

Another large demand for shark cartilage is for manufacture of "Shark Cartilage Powder" or pills as a cure for cancer. The anti cancer claims of such powders marketed in many parts of the world has been discounted by the US Food and Drug Administration

Food and Drug Administration

The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...

and Federal Trade Commission

Federal Trade Commission

The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...

s. In spite of such injunctions, the trade in this powder continues and the shark cartilage powder is still widely marketed as a cancer cure, stated to be selling at US$145 per gram. It is also stated that in Costa Rica, one single firm alone processed 235,000 sharks every month to manufacture cartilage pills.

Environmental concerns

Since the late 1980s populations of northwest Atlantic coastal and oceanic shark have dropped by an average of 70%, and in 2003 the World Conservation Union

World Conservation Union

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is an international organization dedicated to finding "pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges." The organization publishes the IUCN Red List, compiling information from a network of...

(IUCN) estimated that tens of millions of sharks are finned and discarded at sea every year. However, estimates are muddy given the fact that the sharks and their fins cross-cut different fishing markets (not to mention that the vast majority of sharks are exploited in the Pacific coast of Costa Rica as opposed to the Atlantic coast). The major environmental problem facing Costa Rican waters by mass shark finning is that the fishermen involved in the practice of killing sharks for their fins pay no attention to the age, gender, size, or even the species of shark. Young shark may be killed off, drastically affecting the ability to breed. A further biological complication is that sharks are naturally slow to breed and mature, which makes the possibility of extinction for many shark species in Costa Rican waters becoming increasingly ominous.

As far back as 1999, FAO initiated action to introduce a “Voluntary Plan of Action for sharks.” The response, though not spontaneous, received support from 15 countries including Costa Rica. Even in the early 2000s, the fin trade market’s influence on over exploitation of fins was realized, with many countries imposing ban on fishing of these species. Goaded by WildAid’s campaigns in East Asia, high profile politicians and their kin, film personalities, industrial establishments and committed individuals took voluntary “No shark fin” pledge and many personalities hosted banquets with “shark free” announcements. There is now constant publicity in the media in this regard in eastern Asia.

Crackdown

Former Costa Rican president Abel Pacheco

Abel Pacheco

Abel Pacheco de la Espriella was president of Costa Rica between 2002 and 2006, representing the Social Christian Unity Party ...

, a noted environmentalist, and his Taiwanese counterpart, Chen Shui-Bian

Chen Shui-bian

Chen Shui-bian is a former Taiwanese politician who was the 10th and 11th-term President of the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008. Chen, whose Democratic Progressive Party has traditionally been supportive of Taiwan independence, ended more than fifty years of Kuomintang rule in Taiwan...

began a crackdown on shark finning in the early 2000s. However, enforcement is nearly impossible because of corrupt politicians and the terror created by the Taiwanese mafia preventing officials from making a stand against the trading. A reform bill has been proposed in Congress since the late 1990s in which a law would be passed entailing a prison term of up to two years for any perpetrator involved in the trafficking of fins that have been cut from sharks’ bodies before the catch has reached the dock. In this context, Pretoma has obtained a petition of over 20,000 signatures calling for the suspension of landing permits for foreign fishing vessels. Although the opposition to the trading is high and indeed illegal, effectively cracking down on the industry will be difficult as long as law enforcement and monitoring of fishing vessels is slack and corruption and poverty remain. The Taiwanese and Indonesian mafia even run their own private docks in Puntarenas which are known to the government and the Costa Rican police but incoming vessels are rarely inspected in a climate of fear. The port of Puntarenas, as of 2003, only had three inspectors allocated to the inspection of hundreds of vessels and generally only examines about 20% of them. As of 2003, no full-scale government investigation has been instituted into the port of Puntarenas, widely known to be the linch-pin of the illegal Costa Rican shark fin trading industry. In 2007, Costa Rica was again internationally criticized for its handling of sharkfinning.

Gordon Ramsay incident

In early January, 2011, British chef Gordon Ramsay

Gordon Ramsay

Gordon James Ramsay, OBE is a Scottish chef, television personality and restaurateur. He has been awarded 13 Michelin stars....

and his TV crew were threatened at gunpoint and with petrol while filming for his episode of the new Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

show, Big Fish Fight. Ramsay said of the incident, "Back at the wharf, there were people pointing rifles at us to stop us filming. A van pulled up and these seedy characters made us stand against a wall. The police came and advised us to leave the country. They said, 'If you set one foot in there, they'll shoot you.' At one point, I managed to shake off the people keeping us away, ran up some stairs to a rooftop and looked down to see thousands of fins, drying on rooftops as far as the eye could see. When I got back downstairs, they tipped a barrel of petrol over me."

External links

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