While shark fishing has been banned since 2007 in Ecuador, exports of fins, highly prized in Asia, have tripled between 2020 and 2021. Fishermen take refuge in the legal vagueness in force, which tolerates so-called catches “accidental”. A vagueness denounced by the Ecuadorian investigation site GK.
Are Ecuadorian fishermen endangering protected species of sharks to export their fins, much appreciated in Asia?
According to official figures, Ecuador, a major fishing country, almost tripled its shark fin exports between 2020 and the first nine months of 2021, from 82 to 223 tonnes.
And yet, the country has banned fishing for these sharks for fifteen years. But the 2007 law, explains the Ecuadorian reporting and investigation site GK, “clarifies that the meat and fins of this fish can only be marketed when they are accidentally caught”.
That is to say when they are caught in the nets of other species.
Four Specially Appreciated Species
Of 400 species of sharks, “among the most vulnerable animals in the oceans”, 38 are fished in Ecuadorian waters – among others.
GK continue :
The strangest thing about this increase in exports in 2021 is that 78% of them […] correspond to four species protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites
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Created in 2011 in Guayaquil, the economic capital of the country, this site of critical reflection and reports, only present online, claims the bias of the story, in line with the Latin American vein of narrative journalism.
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