Legislation
- While legislation is indicating an improvement, there needs to be a global approach and enforcement. As long as some countries allow shark finning, it will be easier for fishers to hunt this species.
- Additionally, new legislation demands that shark fins still be attached to their body. This is a considerable improvement compared to previous legislation, which had a major loophole: bodies and fins could be landed in different ports, allowing fisher to remove only the fins and thus carry more fins as they were not constrained by the limits imposed by shark bodies. Yet, new legislation should aim at fully eliminating shark hunting.
- Also, if shark finning were to be allowed in minimal amounts, legislators should consider implementing prices which reflect environmental costs. While it is hard to put a price on potential environmental costs, higher costs would inhibit larger segments of the population to access the product. This would allow shark fin soup to become the delicacy it used to be, that a very small fragment of the population could afford. We would return to hunting sharks in a more sustainable fashion, allowing species to replenish according to their natural reproduction patterns.