Saving Gulf sharks from jaws of doom

The international trade in three species of hammerhead shark found in the Arabian Gulf will be severely restricted through a treaty designed to prevent them from becoming extinct. That trade is being driven by the popularity of shark fin soup in Asia, John Henzell reports

Workers cut shark fins at a fish market in Dubai. The UAE is the world’s fourth biggest exporter of shark fins to Hong Kong, the world centre for the $1.2bn trade. Kamran Jebreili / AP Photo

If not for the misfortune of being the favoured ingredient in a popular dish in an increasingly wealthy Far East country, the smooth hammerhead sharks of the Arabian Gulf would be thriving.

For millennia the species here developed in complete isolation, separated by about 3,000 kilometres from the nearest colony on the southern tip of India. But that was not enough to save the fish from the burgeoning demand for shark-fin soup.

The population has plummeted - but help is at hand thanks to a move this week to severely restrict the harvesting of smooth hammerheads and four other species of sharks, two of which are also found in the Gulf.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) voted overwhelmingly this week to add five shark species to the category which are banned from being traded internationally unless they can be shown to have been harvested sustainably and legally.

China and Japan were among the nations opposing the listing, which will come into effect in 18 months.

The UAE is the world's fourth biggest exporter of shark fins to Hong Kong, the world hub for the estimated US$1.2 billion (Dh4.4bn) trade, behind Spain, Singapore and Taiwan. It has been a signatory to Cites since 1990 and was represented at the conference in Thailand, where the voting was by secret ballot.

The five new species will join three endangered shark species already protected by the convention - the great white, the whale shark and the basking shark.

Manta rays, the gill plates of which are used in a traditional Chinese purifying tonic, were also added to the list at the conference in Bangkok.

The protection was driven by the United States, Brazil and Colombia, and by NGOs such as the Pew Environmental Group and Shark Advocates International.

It was welcomed by local groups such as Sharkwatch Arabia, which described the vote as "a great day for sharks".

Elizabeth Wilson, who runs Pew's global shark-conservation campaign, says humans are the real predators, with an estimated 100 million sharks killed last year.

"The tide is now turning for shark conservation," she says.

"With these new protections, oceanic whitetip, porbeagle, and hammerhead sharks will have the chance to recover and once again fulfil their role as top predators in the marine ecosystem."

The vote was a dramatic turnaround from three years ago, when a similar move to protect the three hammerhead species failed at the Cites conference in Doha. Every proposal to regulate trade of commercially valuable marine species at the March 2010 conference was defeated.

The reclassification of the five shark species is expected to be ratified on the final day of the Cites conference tomorrow.

The UAE has made efforts to conserve sharks, with a 2008 law banning the finning of live sharks at sea and outlawing shark fishing from January 1 to April 30 each year, the main period of the breeding season.

Shark conservation advocates have pushed for a longer no-fishing season and an outright ban on the import and export of shark fins.

But trade in the three hammerhead species in the Gulf and in Omani waters has remained mostly unregulated until six months ago, when they were listed on a lower-level Cites category that requires nations to keep track of the trade of endangered and vulnerable species.

Because most of the hammerheads, primarily the scalloped hammerhead, are caught in Omani waters but sold at Deira fish market in Dubai before being re-exported to Asia, they came under the international trade category of Cites.

That requirement meant the UAE and Oman had to establish licensing systems for the international trade in hammerheads. It came into effect late last year.

At the time, the move was described as potentially "a game-changer here in UAE and the region" by Nick Dulvy, a spokesman for the shark specialist group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

"Many hammerheads at the fish market in Dubai come from Oman," he says. "The scalloped hammerhead fins re-exported from the UAE come from other countries in the region.

"The implication of this is that all exporting countries need to provide a certificate of origin and a statement that the species was caught legally. Any re-exporting country must also have certification."

Soon after the listing, the UAE was the venue for the Shark Conservation in Arabia Workshop, organised in Dubai by the IUCN, the Ministry of Environment and Water, and Sharkquest Arabia.

Part of the event's goal was to assess what level of protection the local shark species warranted. Besides the three hammerhead species, there are 23 other shark species found in the Gulf and nearby waters, with another 17 species suspected of being in the area.

The implications of the Cites listings of the three hammerhead species is to potentially make the export illegal.

Dr Ralf Sonntag, a shark expert at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said before the workshop that if the hammerheads were coming from areas where the fishing was at unsustainable levels, importing them to UAE fish markets and re-exporting them to Asia would be illegal.

"If, say, Oman can produce a document showing fishing is not detrimental for the shark, that there is science showing they have lots of hammerheads, then it is allowed. If that is not the case then this trade should be stopped."

One of the main difficulties of assessing the sustainability of the shark populations is a lack of reliable data. Research is needed to determine what level of harvesting is sustainable, to avoid the Gulf following the example of the Mediterranean, where hammerhead populations are one ten-thousandth of their original level.

Dr Sonntag says there is no doubt the three species are under threat, but it is not yet possible to determine exactly what level of harvesting will be sustainable.

"There are no exact figures for the numbers in this region, or many other regions, but the population is massively under pressure," he adds.

"It would be very important to protect them so they can recover. It would help save them."

Part of the case by shark-protection advocates is that the UAE misses out on most of the economic benefits of the trade in shark fins.

Dried fins fetch between Dh100 and Dh125 per kilogram at Deira Fish Market, but they sell for up to $880 (Dh3,250) in Hong Kong.

Sharkquest Arabia's Jonathan Ali Khan says rich Asian businessmen get most of the profits but that the UAE has to bear much of the negative publicity associated with the trade.

"The negativity associated with this trade in terms of image is not worth it," he said at the time of the workshop.

He applauds "really important decisions" such as the ban on shark fishing during the breeding season but believes more should be done.

"We're hoping that we can try to get it extended, perhaps to six months, because it's a little bit short of the whole breeding season," he says. "And speaking for myself, I do believe that the UAE could ban the fin trade."