Brazil seizes world’s biggest illegal shark fin consignment

Brazilian authorities said on Monday they had seized 28.7 metric tonnes of illegally obtained shark fins that would be exported to Asia, in what they called the world’ largest confiscation of its kind at the origin.
Environment protection agency Ibama estimated the consignment represented the death of some 10,000 sharks of two different species, the blue shark and the shortfin mako shark, which entered Brazil’s national list of endangered species last month.
“These apprehensions on an integrated basis represent the largest recorded in the world, especially considering it is a seizure at the source where the sharks are caught,” Ibama said in a statement.
According to a 2022 news article in the journal of Unesp, the Sao Paulo State University, curbing illegal fishing is one way to protect sharks from extinction. But with more than 8,000 kilometers (4,970 miles) of coastline and weak environmental enforcement, oversight is practically non-existent in Brazil, the journal’s article argued.