No matter how you feel about the anti-extravagance campaign, you have to admit the resultant 90% drop in the Hong Kong to mainland shark fin trade is a pretty sweet statistic. Or maybe it was that David Beckham WildAid ad that did the trick. SCMP reports:
The figures, drawn from government statistics, show a drop in re-export volumes of 17.5 per cent. This was driven by a 90 per cent drop in re-exports to mainland China from 1.2 million kilograms in 2012 to 113,973kg.
Mainland China, formerly Hong Kong’s biggest re-export market, fell to fourth place last year after being overtaken by Vietnam for the first time since 2010.
“We were very surprised when we saw this figure as the mainland has traditionally been Hong Kong’s biggest re-export market,” said WWF-Hong Kong senior programme director Tracy Tsang Chui-chi.
Eight shark species are now protected from trade under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). And studies have shown that various shark species are staging a comeback.
Maybe you don’t necessarily have to be black, white, and fuzzy to survive as an animal in China after all.
