Since 2003, PRETOMA has led an aggressive campaign against shark finning in Costa Rica ( video del aleteo), which has eventually grown into a regional and global effort to stop shark finning.

Early on, we had detected two main flaws in Costa Rica ' s efforts to manage sharks: disregard of the best available science and of national laws, mainly the use of private docks on behalf of foreign fleets to land their products, a condition that makes the defense of the public interest impossible. A public education campaign exposed the situation to the Costa Rican people. More than 80,000 citizens signed our petition to ExPresident Abel Pacheco calling for the use of the best science and compliance with our laws.

Currently, Costa Rica boasts the best shark finning regulation in the world, calling for all shark fins to be landed attached naturally to the bodies (Article 40 of the National Fishery Law). Now, it is urgent to regionalize and globalize this policy. PRETOMA is working with a network of Central and South American NGOs to stop shark finning in the region and promote a responsible shark fishery.

Unfortunately, Costa Rica is still dragging a compliance issue, as private docks continued to be used for the landing of shark products by foreign fleets. The Constitutional Court ruled over a year ago (February of 2006) that the activity had to immediately halted. Only two months ago (February of 2007), the National Comptrollership ordered INCOPESCA to abide by the Court ruling and stop all landings by foreign fleets at private docks,. However, INCOPESCA is requesting the Comptrollership to nullify the report and recommendations. The Comptrollership has facilitated a copy of INCOPESCA's nullification request to PRETOMA, and we will issue our own report soon. Last April 18, Randall Arauz, President of PRETOMA, met with President Oscar Arias and requested him to intervene to guarantee that national shark fishing policy