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  The Independent 25 Jun 06
Fins for sale: Galapagos sharks are under threat due to growing demand for £100-a-bowl soup in Chinese restaurants
By Stephen Khan

One of the world's most cherished and fragile ecosystems is threatened by the growing popularity of a delicacy being served in some of Britain's leading restaurants. Elaborate soup dishes made with sharks' fins cost more than £100 a bowl, but that has not prevented them from becoming common on the menus of upmarket Chinese eateries.

And that could spell disaster for the delicate balance of wildlife in the Galapagos Islands, the Pacific archipelago made famous by Charles Darwin, who based his ground-breaking theory of evolution on the diversity of wildlife he found there.

Now, though, that diversity is at risk.

Despite bans on the trade in fins, conservationists believe that in the past five years the fins of more than 1.7 million sharks have been exported from Ecuador - and the Galapagos region accounted for more than 80 per cent of those.

Ecologists and scientists are now battling to ensure the sharks and unique ecology of the Galapagos survive. Leonor Stjepic of the Galapagos Conservation Trust yesterday warned that the shark populations of the islands' waters were in dramatic decline.

And the popularity of shark fin dishes around the world were to blame, she added.

Traditionally, shark's fin soups were the dish of choice for wealthy Chinese and were served at weddings. But the rapid growth of China's wealthy middle class and the spreading popularity of specialist Chinese food have seen demand rocket.

Shark's fin is now the star ingredient in some of Britain's top Chinese restaurants. The fins bring little in the way of flavour, but chefs stew them until the cartilage softens and takes on a noodle-like consistency.

Widely regarded as one of the finest restaurants in the UK, Kai of Mayfair, in London, was dubbed the home of the "world's most expensive soup" when it unveiled its Buddha Jumps Over the Wall last year. At £108, it includes Japanese flower mushroom, sea cucumber, dried scallops, chicken, Hunan ham, pork, ginseng and, of course, shark's fin. Staff at the restaurant could not say which part of the world the fins were sourced from.

But ecosystems on the other side of the globe are paying a high price for such luxuries. It has been estimated that as many as 100 million sharks may be dying each year so their fins can end up in soup.

And the waters around the Galapagos are prime fishing ground for sharks.

Many are illegally "finned", as the rest of the animal is worth little. This sees the shark lifted from the water by fishermen who cut off the fins and then plunge the bloodied animal back into the water, where it slowly bleeds to death.

The practice is wreaking havoc on the marine reserve that surrounds the Galapagos and is home to 33 shark species. Of those, the hammerhead, the blue, the thresher, the black tip, the mako and the Galapagos are being hit hardest.

Graham Watkins, executive director of the Charles Darwin Foundation, yesterday warned of the effects of the depletion of shark stocks.

"The removal of sharks would have a terrible impact," he told The Independent on Sunday. "They are predators at the top of the ecosystem." He added that evidence suggested numbers were in free fall, and that would have implications for thousands of other species in the region.

"In the past few years, the shark fin trade in Ecuador has been completely out of control, with large volumes of fins originating in the Galapagos Islands," said a recent report into the trade by the US environmental agency Wild Aid.

The remote islands have a distinctly different biological make-up from the rest of Latin America. An astonishing variety of animals, such as pink flamingos, finches, penguins, tortoises and iguanas, have evolved in ways that are unique to the Galapagos.

The issue has even attracted the support of Ecuador's national football team, who today take on England in the World Cup. "Just as soccer brought us together, let's come together for the sharks," the team said. "Play fair for the sharks."
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