Study On The Impact Of Shark Fin Trade In Mainland China On Shark Conservation

The shark is a generic term for the Selachimorpha animal,and its products are used in many countries and regions around the world.Sharks are at the top of marine food chain,but because of it late sexual maturity,low reproductive rate,strong product demand,poor fisheries supervision and high bycatch rate,the resource decline has been severe in recent years and the population is being threatened.As China is a major consumer of the costly shark fins made by deep processing,the international community shows great concern over it.In this paper,the research on shark fin trade in Mainland China is carried out to explore the impact of shark fin consumption in the Chinese mainland on shark fishing in the world,and provide scientific basis and policy theory basis for better conservation of shark resources.The copywriting method to obtain and analyze the relationship between the global shark catches published by the FAO and the Chinese shark fin imports from the China Customs Administration was used,and the operation of the shark product operators in the Chinese mainland through a semi-structured questionnaire was studied.The experiment was conducted to explore the preferences of Chinese shark fin consumers and the possible problems of shark fin consumption in China.The research results were as follows:1)The main product of the shark products market in China is shark fin.The peak period of shark fin sales and price was from 2008 to 2012.Since 2013,sales volume and price have dropped sharply.But it was at a all-time low between 2015 and 2017,and 2017 was compared.Compared with the same period in 2016,sales and prices continued to fall.2)According to the results of WTP,Chinese shark fin consumers have a more scientific concept of consumption,indicating that they resent shark fins from living sharks,that is,they are willing to pay a higher price to choose to consume shark fin that is not a living body.There are clear and objective views on the protection of shark species and the reasons for their decline in resources,but there are still some consumers who have one-sided opinions on shark fin,especially the shark fin of rare species.3)Imports of dried shark fins in China have plummeted,while global shark catches have remained stable overall.There is no positive correlation between global shark catches and the sharp decline in shark fin consumption in mainland China.The environmental protection concept advocated by some NGOs has a great impact on the public science education of the public,but it is unrealistic to use shark fin consumption in the Chinese mainland as the culprit in destroying shark resources.Although China's conservation and effective management of shark resources has been recognized by the international community,there are still some problems.For example,the cooperation between domestic law enforcement agencies is relatively weak,and the supervision is not strong.Chinese consumers still have unscientific consumption concepts and misleading propaganda of some NGOs with extreme protection attitudes.The following suggestions are made for these issues:1.Strengthening scientific publicity and education on shark conservation;2.Strengthening regulatory capacity;3.Strengthening fishing management;4.Strengthening data collection.