The Environmental Justice Institute of Brazil is suing seafood exporter, Siglo do Brasil Comercio, for illegally killing nearly 300,000 sharks which has created massive damage to the marine ecosystem. The issue at hand is that most of these sharks were just thrown back into the ocean with their fins cut off. It is illegal to separate fins from the sharks in Brazil but Asian diners are obsessed with their shark fin soup which places enormous value on the fins of sharks. The backlash is that the damaged sharks are then just thrown back into the ocean to die. The Asians only value the fin for the popular Asian Soup. This craze is most popular among the Asian middle class which encourages companies like Siglo do Brasil to hunt sharks strictly for their fin and waste the rest of the animal.
This only shows a fraction of the sharks that are illegally killed off the northeast coast of Brazil. This illegal fishing is causing irreparable harm to the ocean’s ecosystem because sharks are at the top of the food chain. Upon raiding the premises of the seafood exporter, the enforcement agency of Brazil’s environmental ministry found separated fins from sharks but the seafood company denies where they came from and has no documentation to prove where they got them. The Associated Press tried to reach the Brazilian company but the calls went unanswered.
The Environmental Justice group is suing for the sum of $790 million dollars for the sale of the 290,000 sharks that were de- finned and lost their lives to the Asian soup craze.
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