Play in 2 acts for the sharks of Malpelo and elsewhere ... (post based on the words collected from the mouth of a ranger of the Galapagos park in September 2011)

Le requin

I appeared 400 million years ago and adopted my final body shape about 100 million years ago. I am placed at the top of the food chain and over the centuries I have played a major role in the regulation of species. Super predator, I forced the lower species to evolve into forms and behaviors better suited to marine life. Since my appearance, I have watched over the oceans and played an important role in the stability of the ecosystem where I evolve. In a few years, I have witnessed the massacre of our main rivals, the bluefin tuna. Now that they have disappeared, mine is being attacked in such an odious way that I dare not tell you what people are doing to my fellows and under what conditions they are thrown into the water their mutilated body. But you must have seen photos and films… I have survived 4 major periods of extinction in my history. Yet I have a long growth cycle, limited fertility, and late sexual maturity, which makes me particularly vulnerable to overfishing. While our population has remained constant for millennia, it has suddenly declined by over 90% in exploited areas over the past thirty years, and a third of the species in my family are directly threatened with extinction.

The national park

My name is Coco, Socorro, Malpelo or the Galapagos. I am a sanctuary registered in the world heritage of humanity. I was created by the will of 21 of the greatest in this world. I am a non-profit organization. I operate thanks to the self-sacrifice of a few conscientious and poorly paid rangers, the windfall of a few green sponsors and the ridiculous state subsidies that have to be wrested every year from corrupt politicians. With the help of paltry budgets, I have to set up an organization capable of watching over hundreds of kilometers of coastline and thousands of hectares of marine park. A gigantic space where a boat of a few meters can decimate several hundred sharks in a few hours and in all discretion. In these conditions, my task is titanic and I cannot fight against the dozens of smugglers who operate day or night. Unfortunately for our old land, the great people of this world who elected me did not give me the means to carry out my mission. I don't have an observation satellite, a maritime surveillance plane, or even a speedboat, and I am deprived of the most basic human resources. In a desperate attempt to capture a tiny fraction of my government's meager budgets, I am drawn to the wrath of customs and the national navy who would like to grapple with the park's surveillance mission, increase their area of ​​influence and scoop up the corresponding budgets. We are an emerging country and here people are more concerned with what will be on their offspring's plate at night than with the ecology or management of the world's fisheries resources. I must try to exist and justify myself even though I have to fight internally against individuals and institutions trained in the art of diplomacy and externally, against veritable trusts organized into mafia gangs.

The mafia network

I am a very profit making organization. I understood that there is a demand, therefore a market, therefore profits. The shark fins that I buy for a few pesos on the Pacific coast of Latin America will sell for up to $ 350 per kg in some Asian markets. A return of nearly 200%, well beyond the best investments on the financial markets and much less risky than the activity of my drug-trafficking colleagues. The Chinese economic boom is filling my pockets! It was all a matter of flair and investment. Not complicated. For a few hundred dollars, I hire the services of a boat and a few professional sailors. As far as possible, my boat will be chartered in a country which has no navy. That is to say no one to check me when leaving territorial waters or when unloading on private docs rented for the occasion. Here, Costa Rica for example. It is a neutral country, the first country to have constitutionally suppressed its army… It is also necessary that this country is at a reasonable distance from the most important marine sanctuaries of the Pacific, where the resources abound: The Galápagos, Malpelo, Coco? But yes, precisely… My crew is responsible for recovering cargoes of shark fins or rays, delivered to the limit of Ecuadorian or Colombian territorial waters, then bringing them back here to Costa Rica where they will be packaged and sent back to Asia. Alternatively, I also find unscrupulous fishing bosses willing to defy prohibitions and international conventions. This is getting easier and easier as they find for themselves that there is never a chase or seizure when they are caught. It's even easier with these.

The local sinner

I have lived here for generations. My father, my grandfather and their ancestors were fishing. Faced with the decrease in the quantities of fish in the immediate vicinity of the coast, I learned to fish further and for longer at the risk of my life and that of my teammates. It has been a long time since I understood that a good fish is a fish caught, gutted and sold. The difference between a fish in the sea and the one at the end of my line is the amount of food on my four children's plates. For the past few months, I have had new friends. They speak Spanish like me. They equipped me with a portable GPS. They give me an appointment every two weeks, to unload my cargo 60 kilometers from the coast. They pay ten times the price that local restaurateurs offer me for my fish. What they want ? Rays and sharks fins! With a good baseline and a few hooks, I can take out a dozen sharks in the evening, and immediately put them back in the water after removing the tail and the dorsal, pelvic and pectoral fins ... just to remain discreet of course. ! When I'm lucky, I catch a manta ray. There is the jackpot! Enough to feed my family for two weeks with just one line. My new friends pay in cash, and if business continues like this, I could buy a new boat in a few months, just to bring a couple more guys with me and increase my catch. When I think of those morons in the park who wanted to limit me to a line and a hook and send the rangers to me every time I come back to port.

Me, I was there before the park, and before the rangers, and before the tourists, and nobody has the right to tell me where and when and how much I have to fish!

The Asian consumer:

Rooted in cultural heritage and in traditional Asian cuisine, shark fin soup symbolizes wealth, power, prestige and honor. Prepared since the time of the Ming dynasty (14^e century), it was reserved for the emperor and nobles because of its high price, taste and supposed virtues. It has remained for centuries the privilege of a few wealthy Chinese families. As a result of economic growth in Asia, it is today a delicacy that we, the emerging classes, covet more and more. It becomes the witness of my social rise and my financial success. Its popularity and price are soaring. It is on the menu of all respectable tables. All the more reason for her to be that of my daughter as well, whom I am marrying next week. The resources are such that it would be foolish for me to deprive myself of what my family has coveted for centuries ...

End of act two: sharks and rays have almost completely disappeared

The envious consumer of the Western lifestyle turned to farmed caviar and French champagne!

The national park has adapted: a concrete wall has been erected along the coasts made of the same tourist complexes as those bordering the Red Sea. Tourists continue to dive, but to see sharks, they have to go to 3D cinemas or giant aquariums where we proudly display these predators that haunted our beaches and endangered the lives of our children. . The infrastructures put in place attract hundreds of tourists every year. The park supports more and more people. State coffers are filling up and budgets have increased tenfold. Of course, the park's mission has changed, but how comfortable it is to exercise it under its conditions. Especially since its director is well established in the corridors of the government and could well be appointed secretary of state for tourism.

Always ahead of a war, survival requires, the Mafia network has refocused its maritime activities in the illegal exploitation of abalone and dolphins. It is also preparing for the reprocessing of products derived from sperm whales and whales. In anticipation of the announced disappearance of these species, the gang is already reconverted into counterfeiting and prostitution, using the same channels that allowed them to deliver the products of their fishing to the markets of Taipei or Hong Kong by transit through the ports of 'East London or Durban in South Africa.

Our sinner persists. His 4 sons found odd jobs in one of the XNUMX tourist resorts on the island. He does not conceive of his life other than on the sea, in his aging boat that he should have changed while he still had the possibility. His GPS is broken and his Costa Rican friends no longer come. You have to manage as before. What is terrible is that the fish have completely deserted the coast. It is now necessary to fish several days at sea and dozens of meters of depth to bring back a few kilos of fresh fish that tourists love. The fisherman no longer knows which of his boat or himself will be the first to be exhausted, unless one moonless night, a wave bigger than the others takes them both to the bottom at the same time.

At this distance from the coast, no one would notice ...

Catastrophe scenario, alarmist preacher, extremist ecologist?

The umpteenth piece of advice and warning from a developed nation (where obesity problems affect 60% of the population), to a developing country (where people are still dying of hunger in the ghettos)?

So look at what is going on in your country could say Costa Rica, Ecuador or Colombia. Would they be wrong? In 2007, the Mediterranean held the record for the number of species of cartilaginous fish threatened with extinction. In this region, the causes of these disappearances are overfishing induced by the use of trawls and driftnets which, although banned, continue to be used shamelessly. The countries that fish the most are Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Greece, Italy and Spain. In 2007, only the white shark and the basking shark were protected in the waters of the European Community. Europe is believed to be responsible for 56% of world shark meat imports. In the Mediterranean, the size and the average mass of sharks caught are drastically decreasing, which suggests that manyyes sharks are caught before they can reach sexual maturity and therefore reproduce.

The EU is taking measures, but they will be sufficient and above all, will we acquire the means to enforce them before, like the bluefin tuna, the shark has almost completely disappeared from our good old sea? Go spectators. The second act is not finished. There is still some hope. If we act, there is still time to avoid the irreparable. The ocean is full of resources. The planet has seen others. It is never too late to try to reverse a process that seems irreversible.

We're moving. There is work and it is not by sitting in our chairs that we will help the ocean get out. We have to get up. We must move, gesture, denounce, get active, raise awareness, popularize, demystify, each at his level and each with his weapons.

Me today, it's my computer keyboard that I chose ...

PML