Did you know that Portugal is the world’s second largest exporter of shark meat?
Portugal is the world’s second largest exporter of shark meat and the sixth largest importer of ray meat in terms of volume, warns the environmental association ANP/WWF, which fears the end of the species.
On the occasion of World Oceans Day, which is celebrated on Wednesday, Associação Natureza Portugal (ANP), which works in partnership with the international “World Wide Fund for Nature” (WWF), launches an interactive map and alerts to the impacts of species overfishing.
Ana Henriques, an expert at the association that developed the work, says quoted in a statement that she clearly has “exploitation”, which has “repercussions on development for productivity, resilience and ability to mitigate the effects of climate change”. .
“Sharks and rays are much more important in the ocean than on our plate. To reverse this situation, urgently develop and implement a National Action Plan that protects them, as promised by the previous government”, he adds.
The ANP/WWF says in the same document that to each in the world 192 sharks and rays, being minute in fish not only the survival of the species such as the good health of the oceans, which are the subject of a second UN world conference to be held in Portugal at the end of the month.
In the interactive map, the association explains the routes of global trade of the main products based on sharks and rays (meat and fins), and the impact caused by Portugal in the establishment of commercial bridges between large importers and exporters, such as Brazil, Italy, Spain and Namibia.
“The world trade in sharks and rays is depleting these species, and more than four billion annual movements, occurring in more than 190 countries or territories.. The value resulting from the shark and ray meat trade is currently almost double the value of the trade in their fins, although these have much more media attention”, says Ângela Morgado, executive director of the ANP|WWF, quoted in the statement, in which stresses that this is a type of trade that is poorly regulated and “non-transparent”.
According to the organization’s data, Spain is the main partner when it comes to sharks and rays: 95% of commercial ports of ray meat come from Spain and 75% of Portugal’s exports of shark meat go to Spain. .
Protecting sharks and rays in Portugal will fulfill the entire global commercial network, explains Ana Henriques, thus advocating the creation of a National Action Plan for the Management and Conservation of Sharks and Rays.
The ANP/WWF recognizes that Portugal’s role is mainly for export, especially sharks, but points out that consumption takes place, sometimes in a hidden way, with names such as dogfish, dyke and pata-roxa. Not to mention other uses for products based on sharks and rays, whether in cosmetics, food supplements and even for decoration.
Of the 1,200 known species of sharks and rays “more than 36% are threatened”this being the second group, after amphibians, with the most endangered species on the planet, warns the environmental organization.
In the past, the ANP/WWF has already presented a report (Guardians of the Ocean in Crisis) that did not qualify for the adoption of measures that minimize the main threats to the species, in terms of the need for fishing and trade, as well as reinforcing the need for governance issues.
and warned that of the 117 species known in Portuguese waters, almost half are already threatened.
World Oceans Day, this year under the theme “Revitalization: Collective Action for the Ocean”, was decreed in 2008 by the United Nations General Assembly to raise awareness of the arrival of oceans.