New Zealand is still complicit and commercially active in the global shark fin trade, despite shark-finning being banned in the country’s waters in 2014, a leading conservationist says. In the decade since the ban came into effect, New Zealand has exported nearly 500 tonnes of shark fins, destined for the lucrative shark fin soup market, data obtained from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) shows. And Michael Lawry, the boss of New Zealand’s Sea Shepherd bureau, which was part of the NZ Shark Alliance that campaigned to have shark finning banned, says it’s “outrageous” Aotearoa is still participating in the “appalling” trade.
“The whole shark fin industry is just one of the appalling practices they do in New Zealand, and I don’t think New Zealanders realise. “We’re keen to think we’re a green country and everyone talks about how green we are blah, blah, blah, but we also tend to think that we’re some sort of semi-Western progressive nation as far as conservation goes and we’re not. “The New Zealand fishing industry is pretty full on, and they’ll do anything for money.
” The 2014 ban prohibits the catching and killing of sharks solely for their fins and discarding their bodies back to the sea. However, Fisheries New Zealand director Emma Taylor says it’s important to distinguish between illegal shark finning and the legal removal of fins from species on the Quota Management System, which include blue, mako and porbeagle sharks. “Thes.
