Brazil’s top environment council cited a recent Mongabay investigation as it weighed a ban on shark fin exports and the use of wire leaders, a type of industrial fishing gear, within marine protected areas, Mongabay staff writer Karla Mendes reported.
Brazil’s National Environmental Council, known as CONAMA, voted in favor of recommending a ban for both proposals at the end of the Sept. 3 meeting. The decision is not legally binding, but CONAMA’s guidelines typically define the industry’s do’s and don’ts in Brazil.
“Brazil has been exposed internationally in a series of reports, including on the world’s largest environmental news outlet, Mongabay … that clearly show the state of total disorder of Brazil’s commercial shark trade,” José Truda Palazzo Jr., founder of the Humpback Whale Institute and co-author of the CONAMA motion, said during the discussion phase before the vote.
Mongabay’s investigation exposed loopholes and loose controls in the nation’s shark meat industry, including tenders for thousands of metric tons of potentially contaminated shark meat for schools and other public institutions since 2004. Industry organizations deny the risks.
Mongabay did not look at the export of shark fins or the use of wire leaders, the topic of the CONAMA recommendation. However, Braulio Dias, director of conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity with Brazil’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA), said Mongabay’s investigation contributed to ongoing revisions within the industry and has spurred “greater awareness of the seriousness of the problem we are having with sharks.”
However, not everyone applauds the new recommendations. Cadu Villaça, the head of the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Collective, an industry trade group, told Mendes by phone that shark fins add value to the killed animal, and that the proposed CONAMA ban hurts shark fishers.
During the Sept. 3 meeting, the executive secretary of the MMA, João Paulo Capobianco, also announced the suspension of a rule that set quotas for blue shark fishing.
Industry groups spoke out against the decision, which has not yet been implemented, saying they were not invited to discussions and that the decision would harm Brazil’s industry, as imports would be allowed to continue.
Following the CONAMA hearing, Sea Shepherd, a conservation nonprofit, included Mongabay’s findings into its case file for a class-action civil suit it filed in December 2024. The litigation seeks to ban federal public institutions from issuing tenders to purchase shark meat. Sea Shepherd included the hearing’s transcript and a large database documenting municipal and state public procurement tenders for shark meat dating from 2004-25.
Sea Shepherd has agreed to suspend the lawsuit if the federal government immediately stops public purchases of shark meat.
Read the full story by Karla Mendes here.
Banner image: A blue shark (Prionace glauca). Image courtesy of Ellen Cuylaerts/Ocean Image Bank.
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