From the plight of poor sustenance fishermen to the damage caused by commercial fleets, underwater cameraman Mark Thorpe tackles an issue that's drowning in controversy: shark finning.
“Don’t get me wrong – I’m a staunch advocate for shark conservation. I spend a lot of time and effort in the planning and production of documentary projects to help bring the plight of sharks to the fore. But I've also seen more than just one side of this debate”
You can go anywhere on the web these days looking for facts and figures on the global impact that unregulated fishing is having not just on our oceans but on the predators that dwell in them. Comment fields below such articles will invariably include claims that killing the sharks will ultimately kill our oceans. So what's my problem with this? Most people who stand united against the fishing of sharks are not really seeing the larger picture.
Please don’t get me wrong – I’m a staunch advocate for shark conservation. I spend a lot of time and effort in the planning and production of documentary projects to help bring the plight of sharks to the fore. But I've also seen more than just one side of this debate. I live in Indonesia, on the island of Bali to be specific. What is a hedonistic Shangri-la for some is also home to a large population of sustenance fishermen. And their main concern is not that they may unbalance the ocean ecosystem through overfishing but that they may not be able to feed their children. For them, tomorrow is simply another day and their families will eat whatever lands in their nets when that time comes. When technologically advanced fishing fleets have raided their coasts, these sustenance fishermen are left with little to choose from – they have no option but to take whatever bounty finds its way into their nets and onto their hand lines.
Indonesia is also the largest supplier of fins to the Asian shark-fin industry. The buyers can be seen scouring markets all around the archipelago, offering rock-bottom prices. Although I've yet to see an Indonesian sustenance fisherman engaging in shark finning specifically (in the sense of discarding the carcass of a shark after taking the fins), though I am sure that somewhere in this region of 17,000 islands it does indeed happen. In Bali alone, there are areas where transient populations of pregnant thresher sharks are caught daily in their hundreds at specific times of the year. In the north of the island, tiger sharks and hammerheads are regularly caught.
Now more than ever, we need not only an educational programme that clearly outlines the dangers of removing apex predators from a marine food chain but also a viable alternative revenue source for local fishermen. Until then, images like these will only become more and more commonplace.
Sharks
Sharks
