A few weeks ago, an Internet post pertaining to shark finning caught my attention. Shark finning is the practice of removing the fins of a shark when it is still alive and throwing it back into the sea where it drowns and dies. This internet post was fuelled by a newspaper article which began — ‘To stem the tide of illegal shark finning by Indian fishermen’ and went on to describe how a ‘fins attached policy’ was being advocated. According to the policy — ‘any possession of shark fins that are not naturally attached to the body of a shark would amount to hunting of a Schedule I species’ and therefore will attract punishment. The essence is that fewer sharks will be caught if a vessel has to come back with intact shark bodies rather than with the fins alone. An astounding 26 to 73 million sharks are harvested annually to cater to the demand for the exotic fin soups.
However, Indian fishermen do not actually do shark finning — taking the fins, throwing back the shark. Instead they do shark fishing — they utilise most parts of the shark’s body — meat, skin, teeth and fins — as they believe that shark finning is a big waste. In fact, the Association of Deep Sea Going Artisanal Fishermen (ADSGAF), an association of the largest shark fishing villages in India, took the initiative to ratify the policy to ban shark finning. Shark finning in Indian waters is done mostly by foreign vessels. What is amazing is that people always ask who is finning. They never ask who the finning is done for. Somehow, conservation actions and policies always target the lower end of the chain, whether in the poaching of tigers and rhinos or finning of sharks — ‘Put the poacher behind bars’, ‘Ban the cruel fishermen’. How often do you see conservation actions and policies targeting the other end of the chain — the customers? For whom are these sharks being finned in millions?
I was part of a short study done earlier this year which looked at customer demands for seafood across coastal India. During this survey we found out that in Goa restaurant owners increasingly have sharks in their menus as rich Russian tourists like to eat shark. It was monsoon in Goa when we were doing our short survey, when fishing is supposed to be banned. However, some hoteliers proudly declared they did not refrigerate fish, since they got fresh fish for their customers every day. So what if fishing is banned in Goa? Fish is outsourced from neighbouring States like Maharashtra, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.
Rich fishermen owning big trawlers even carry out fishing illegally during the monsoon in Goa.
With their big nets, they vacuum clean the sea of fish. The per kilogram price of prawn, pomfret, and kingfish has tripled over the last decade. While a piece of kingfish is out of reach for the economically weak, elite customers shell out up to `1,500 for each piece. Do hoteliers perceive a decrease in the fish stock? Is an increase in the price an indication of the difficulty of trawlers getting fish? They are oblivious.
As long as the suppliers can employ big trawlers and fish to the maximum to meet the demand, everyone seems happy.
Coming back to the topic of shark finning, when it is known that shark fins are sold worldwide at $400/kg, can we rely too heavily on policies that target minimal catch of sharks per boat.
A single shark fin sells for any price between $10,000 to $20,000.
With this kind of a craze in the background, what should a developing country like India do? Well, the equation looks clear. The Indian government should put pressure internationally on countries like China, USA and Singapore to regulate shark import. High end customers should be targeted in the legal framework.
“I buy because I can afford” — this is the reigning philosophy of today’s world but is this sustainable? In the last decade, Maharashtra alone has seen a reduction of shark catches by 55 per cent. How much more time do we need before we act?