Does He Think We're All Idiots?

Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa has decided to allow the sale of shark fins by fishermen if they are caught "accidentally," although he has provided no explanation that I have been able to find as to how the determination is made as to whether the fins were obtained "accidentally." Thank goodness there are no elephants nor rhinoceroses indigenous to Ecuador . . .

This is idiotic. Shark fins are an expensive delicacy in China, although they have negligible nutritional value and usually result in a miserable death for the shark:

"Finning" refers to the practice of cutting off only the shark fins and discarding the body. Sometimes sharks are dead when they're pulled into the boats, but often, they're still alive as their four fins are cut off with a knife. When they're thrown back into the ocean the sharks either bleed to death, or they drown, because sharks can't swim without fins, and they need to go forward to get oxygen. Divers have discovered hundreds of dead finned sharks at the bottom of the ocean in huge shark graveyards.

Fifty percent of sharks are bycatch -- they're accidentally caught by boats that are looking for tuna, swordfish or other fish. Many of the boats don't want to keep the entire shark, so they just fin them.  This greatly increases the amount of sharks killed, because a fishing boat can hold an enormous amount of fins.

Correa is not doing the fishermen any favors, either. Sharks are predators and species that they feed upon may very well overpopulate, resulting in their starvation as their population outstrips their food supply. It's not called a food chain for nothing.

Another example of Correa's idiocy in this matter is this:

A U.S. environmental activist was freed and a deportation order against him revoked late Saturday, hours after President Rafael Correa ordered him expelled for his role in a police raid to seize shark fins that were apparently illegally fished.

"I thought I would have to leave the country and leave my Ecuadorean wife and daughter here," Sean O'Hearn told The Associated Press by phone after being freed from the immigration center in Quito where he was taken before dawn. "Now I am happy."

O'Hearn said he was visited during the day by Interior Minister Gustavo Larrea and a police commander who, at Correa's request, listened to his story and announced the expulsion order would be reversed.

"The was no justification for revoking my visa," the 33-year-old representative of the environmental group Sea Shepherd said.

One hopes that Correa will come to his senses before the native coastal shark species are devastated by this ridiculous policy. It's wrong, purely and simply wrong.

Comments

[Tambopaxi]

Randy,

It's not idiotic, it's disgraceful political cynicism at its worst.

Ecuador has done a mediocre to poor job of managing its environment, but this is the first time in my six years here, where the government has declared open war on marine biodiversity.

Correa has done this in exchange for the fishermen's votes (sharks can't vote here)while claiming he's seeking to aid the endangered fishing sector in face of attacks from perfidious environmentalist groups (including Sea Shepherd).

Yesterday, according to the local press, 200 environmentalists showed up in Quito's central plaza to protest the shark decree, but there's no indication that Correa will reverse himself on this issue.

Oh, and forget the sharks; the "incidental" catch has shot up enormously. Those fishermen sure have gotten clumsy in the last two weeks...

Ultimately, the fishing sector will destroy itself (as it did, btw, in north Atlantic and along the northern California coast), via overfishing, and then of course, the fisherment will appeal to the government for financial aid. How sad, how predictable, and how avoidable..

[Randinho]

Well, idiocy and calculated political pandering are not mutually exclusive.

That being said, I could not agree with you more. It also really shows, ultimately, what a phony Correa is. The populism he espouses notwithstanding, he's still as beholden to commercial interests as anyone else.

[Justin Delacour]

"It also really shows, ultimately, what a phony Correa is. The populism he espouses notwithstanding, he's still as beholden to commercial interests as anyone else."

My guess, Randy, is that if you were to seriously apply such a stringent standard with regard to Latin American governments that don't sufficiently protect different species, you'd probably have to say that every Latin American president in the continent is a sell-out (except for perhaps Costa Rica's president, who is a sell-out in other ways).

[leftside]

Perhaps this was all handled a bit clumsily, but to equate this with pandering and being beholden to commercial interests is a bit much. We are talking of maybe 5,000 fisherman, who all work independently and must live off their catch. Hardly a huge vote count, when Correa commands a 70%+ approval rating. Nor are these are not "commerical interests" in the normal sense of the word.

As for the details of the decree, there are">http://www.hoy.com.ec/NoticiaNue.asp%3Frow_id%3D273983&prev=/language_tools">are indeed procedures in place to say what is accidental. Every fisherman who catches a shark (accidentally) will have to have a Certificate approved by authorities in order to sell fins. Importantly, the number of beach inspectors is being incrased from 7 to 16.

The real blame for all this are the Asian governments that do nothing to crack down on this distgusting delicacy - an aphrodesiac and symbol of wealth. Plus, Ecuador is one of only a handful of countries that actually bans shark fishing. Most of the Asian imports come from Europe, or other Asian countries, which have no regulation. Ecuador does not even show up in the top 12 suppliers listed in wiki.

This is predominately about small fisherman using old techniques, accidentally catching sharks like they have for centuries. Sure, when the potential payoff is so big, there are cheaters - as there had been for decades. But as sad as the visual is, most of the sharks in these waters are not endangered - though certainly are an important part of the food chain. The sharks were killed the same way before, only they were sent though the black market through Peru or on airplanes. Now it can be above board and regulated. If numbers get too high, the Government has alreay given indications that it might rescind the decree. Correa has also said he would halt the decree if international organizations could raise the estimated $2.2 million that fisherman would lose.

Meanwhile, last week Correa appointed the ex-head of the World Wildlife Fund to lead the Government's Galapagos ministry. Correa has been vocal about the possible need to restore balance to the tourism-eco sphere. He also just created a new national park - Yasuní.

As an aside, Correa's predecessor, Lucio Gutierrez was about to pass this same thing before he was ousted...

Listen, I don't defend this practice and normally put the environment ahead of industry. But equating subistence fisherman with the timber industry or something like that is far off the mark. The fishing industry in Ecuador has been in deep straits for a while and remains the center of a still quite depressed coastal economy. Correa is doing this imperfect remedy because the old law was ineffective. We will see how this one does. The proof is in the implementation of the accident clause. The more than doubling of inspectors shows it intends to enforce the law.

[Randinho]

As an aside, Correa's predecessor, Lucio Gutierrez was about to pass this same thing before he was ousted...

All the more reason to oppose it.

16 inspectors for 2,200 km of coastline. Yeah that'll be effective.

While I agree that the Asian tradition is fueling this, the last time I looked the fishermen and the government had free will and were capable of saying no.

I guess the fundamental difference between us is that if the Bush administration were doing this, you would be outraged. So would I.

[leftside]

More shark fins are netted in US waters than Ecuador (wiki). The US only recently extended the ban to the Pacific Ocean, and then only for US flag bearing ships.

Last week a US based oceans groups called on the US Congress to close this and other loopholes... particularly in regards to enforcement.

My point was that the charges being leveled at Correa were unduly harsh and substantively off the mark. This was a simple case of trying to imrpove the lot of a few thousands lowly fisherman, in a dying but important industry, by forging what sounds on paper to be a sensible policy. But it is all in the enforcement. Time will tell if this is wishful thinking...