Stopping shark finning requires action at every level: international law, national bans, corporate shipping policies, consumer choices, and enforcement technology. Despite nearly 70% of maritime jurisdictions enacting antifinning laws, fishing-related shark deaths climbed from 76 million per year in 2012 to as many as 101 million in 2019. The laws are working where they exist, with experts confirming that finning itself has declined in regulated waters, but the broader killing of sharks has not slowed. Closing the gap between policy and impact is where the real work lies.
Why Existing Laws Haven’t Been Enough
Antifinning laws typically ban the practice of slicing off a shark’s fins and discarding the body at sea. They don’t necessarily ban catching sharks, selling fins from legally landed sharks, or trading fins across borders. This distinction matters. A boat that brings a whole shark to port can still sell its fins in many countries. The problem has shifted from wasteful finning at sea to a broader issue of overfishing and a global fin trade that remains profitable enough to sustain massive demand.
The United States took a more aggressive approach with the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, which became effective on December 23, 2022. The law goes beyond banning finning at sea. It prohibits anyone from possessing, transporting, offering for sale, selling, or purchasing shark fins or any product containing shark fin, with no commercial exceptions and no grace period. NOAA Fisheries coordinated with law enforcement agencies to monitor compliance at the point of harvest, landing, sale, transport, and export. Other countries with strong fin trade bans include Canada, which passed similar legislation in 2019.
Cutting Off the Supply Chain
Shark fins travel enormous distances between the ocean and the bowl of soup. Disrupting that supply chain is one of the most effective strategies available right now. Sixteen of the world’s top 20 container shipping companies, representing over 60% of global shipping capacity, have committed to policies prohibiting the carriage of shark fins. Major carriers including Maersk, Mediterranean Shipping Company, Hapag-Lloyd, and OOCL publicly announced their bans. Eight additional companies established internal bans but hadn’t yet posted them publicly as of WWF-Hong Kong’s last tracking report.
Airlines have followed a similar path. Dozens of major carriers refuse to transport shark fin cargo, making it increasingly difficult for traders to move product through legitimate channels. The more companies that adopt these policies, the more the trade gets pushed into smaller, harder-to-use logistics networks, raising the cost and risk for traffickers.
DNA Testing at Ports and Markets
One of the biggest enforcement challenges is that a dried, processed shark fin looks the same whether it came from a common species or a critically endangered one. DNA barcoding has changed that. Scientists extract genetic material from fin products and compare a specific gene sequence against a global database. A match above 99% sequence identity confirms the species.
Taiwan’s customs agency has collaborated with researchers at National Taiwan University since 2013 to identify detained shark fins using this technique. The testing works on fresh tissue and dried fin products alike, and it can even reveal geographic origin for certain species like hammerheads and thresher sharks. This means authorities can not only identify what species a fin came from but potentially trace where it was caught, making it possible to enforce both species-specific protections and regional fishing regulations.
Wider adoption of portable DNA testing kits at ports, markets, and border crossings would make it far harder to launder protected species into legal trade. Right now, the technology exists but isn’t deployed at the scale needed to police a global market.
Making Live Sharks Worth More Than Dead Ones
The economic argument for shark conservation is surprisingly strong. Shark ecotourism generates over $314 million per year globally, directly supporting around 10,000 jobs across roughly 590,000 shark watchers. The landed value of the entire global shark fishing industry is about $630 million and has been declining for most of the past decade. Based on current growth trends, shark tourism revenue could more than double within 20 years, exceeding $780 million annually.
A single reef shark in a popular diving destination can generate tourism revenue year after year for its entire lifespan. The same shark killed for its fins produces a one-time payment worth a fraction of that. Countries like Palau, the Maldives, and the Bahamas have leaned into this math by creating shark sanctuaries that ban commercial shark fishing entirely, turning their waters into tourism draws. For coastal communities weighing their options, the long-term economics increasingly favor keeping sharks alive.
What You Can Do as a Consumer
The most direct action is refusing to buy or eat shark fin soup and making that choice visible. Demand drives the market. In Hong Kong, one of the world’s largest fin markets, consumption has dropped significantly over the past decade as public awareness campaigns reframed shark fin soup from a status symbol to an environmental problem. Social pressure works, particularly when it targets the banquets and corporate events where shark fin is traditionally served.
Beyond your plate, your seafood choices affect sharks through bycatch. Sharks are caught incidentally in fisheries targeting tuna, swordfish, and shrimp. Supporting fisheries certified under standards that require minimizing harm to endangered and protected species helps shift the industry toward practices that reduce shark mortality. Look for seafood sourced from fisheries with strong bycatch management requirements, and ask restaurants and retailers where their seafood comes from.
You can also support organizations running enforcement programs, lobbying for stronger trade bans, or funding DNA testing at ports. Donating to groups that work directly with customs agencies and fishing authorities tends to have a more concrete impact than general awareness campaigns.
Pushing for Stronger International Rules
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) regulates cross-border trade in threatened shark species, requiring export permits that verify the fins came from sustainable, legal sources. Over the past decade, the number of shark species listed under CITES protections has expanded significantly, covering many of the most commercially valuable species. But CITES only works when countries enforce it, and enforcement varies dramatically.
Contacting elected officials to support stronger shark trade legislation, funding for port enforcement, and international cooperation agreements is one of the highest-leverage actions available to individuals in countries with political access. The U.S. federal ban showed that comprehensive legislation, not just finning bans but full trade prohibitions, can pass when there’s enough public pressure. Similar laws in more countries would shrink the legal market further and make enforcement at borders simpler.
Regional fisheries management organizations, which govern fishing in international waters, also set catch limits and finning rules for their member nations. Pushing your country’s representatives in these bodies to advocate for lower shark catch quotas and mandatory fin-to-carcass ratios addresses the problem in the open ocean, where national laws don’t reach.