Malaysia is the 2nd Biggest Importer of Shark Fins in the World!
Malaysia is the 2nd Biggest Importer of Shark Fins in the World!
For the past decade or so, there are many efforts to put shark fins away in our soup especially in Chinese restaurants and Chinese wedding celebrations. Gordon Ramsay risked his life in producing the documentary on shark fins in ‘Shark Bait’. There are also many efforts like WWF Malaysia’s My Fin My Life campaign. Thus, we don’t order shark fins in our menu anymore except it is ‘fake shark fins’ made from gelatines. Same goes to Chinese wedding dinners, many choose to have a different type of soup rather than the traditional shark fins soup.
Despite the effort to curb the demand of shark fins in Malaysia, there is a report by TRAFFIC putting Malaysia as the World’s 2nd Biggest Importer of Shark Fins. Our neighbour country Singapore meanwhile is the World’s 2nd Largest Trader of Shark Fins!
TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network and WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) published the report recently on their website.
According to the report, Hong Kong is the world’s number one biggest importer of shark fins, Malaysia is 2nd while Singapore is third. In terms of trade, Singapore is now the second largest shark fin trader in the world. The report is according to year 2012 to 2014. Full report can be read here (PDF).
Spread the awareness to your friends and families, stop eating shark fins. We need to do more!
Malaysia is number 3. You state, and the report by Clarke bears this out.
However, your conclusions stand. Malaysia and Singapore should lead China in the effort to reduce shark fin consumption and help save sharks. With the Sabah Shark Protection Association and Shark Stewards, we are attempting just that.