Part of the shipment of nearly 30 tons of shark fins was seized by Ibama (Brazilian environmental agency) from an export company in Itajai in Santa Catarina this Monday.Brazilian Environmental Agency (via Portal)
Brazil has seized 28.7 tonnes of shark fins destined for export, likely to Asia, where they are considered a delicacy. The State Environmental Protection Agency, which carried out the arrest, claims it is the largest arrest in the world. The Brazilian Institute for the Environment (Ibama), announcing the seizure on Monday, said that the collection of such a shipment of fins would mean the death of about 11,000 specimens.
The limbs discovered in two parts of Brazil belong to two species: about 4,400 blue sharks and another 5,600 mako (which Brazil listed as an endangered species just last month).
In his statement, Ibama emphasizes that “these fears are the greatest.” [operación de este tipo] in the world, especially considering that the confiscation was made at the point of origin, the place where the sharks were caught.”
Almost all of the fins were on a ship owned by an export company in southern Santa Catarina state, about which authorities have not released further details. And a lot was learned at São Paulo International Airport.
Brazil has some 9,000 kilometers of coastline and environmental control, already weak in the Amazon jungle, is virtually nil in the territorial waters of Latin America’s largest country.
Shark fishing is illegal in Brazil, but Ibama has said the poachers used permits to catch other marine species as cover. Millions of sharks are fished every year just to get their fins for export to China and other Asian countries.
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Chef Luis Andoni Aduriz wrote in this newspaper a few years ago that the craving for shark fin soup had threatened a quarter of the planet’s sharks with extinction. And it was highlighted that the controversial delicacy is still sold in 145 countries.
The NGO Sea Shepard, which is calling on the European Parliament to finally ban the shark fin trade, claims that the European Union exports about 3,400 tons a year. Its subsidiary in Brazil has called on Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government to ban the sale of fins and imports of shark meat as essential measures to protect these endangered species.
Just a few days ago, one of the largest newspapers in Brazil launched its front page with the sea covered in blood from whaling on the Faroe Islands in Denmark.
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