November 20, 2003, San Jose, Costa Rica - o­n Friday, November 14, 2003, concerned Costa Rican citizens held a "No Shark Finning" demonstration along Central Avenue, a busy pedestrian promenade through downtown San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. 

Shark finning is the practice of cutting off the fins of sharks and discarding the shark bodies, often still alive, back into the sea. 

Demonstrators walked down the busy promenade during morning rush hour dressed in large shark costumes with removable fins while other demonstrators imitated the practice of shark finning by removing the fins.  When demonstrators reached the large Culture Plaza all fins had been removed and the sharks lay motionless in the center of the plaza.

Along the route demonstrators and passersby chanted "No More Shark Finning" and "No to the New Shark Fin Regulation."

INCOPESCA (the Costa Rican National Fishery Department) recently passed a new regulation which officials say will protect sharks and not permit shark finning, but the regulation has been met with strong opposition.

"INCOPESCA's new regulation replaces Costa Rica's famous 2001 ban o­n shark finning with a complex new system INCOPESCA officials claim will not permit shark finning, but they are not fooling anyone, not biologists, not conservationists, nor citizens o­n the streets of San Jose," said Randall Arauz, Director of PRETOMA.  "The regulation clearly allows fishermen to fin sharks, discard shark bodies at sea and land the shark fins in Costa Rica.  People o­n the streets of San Jose know this and they don't like it."

"If you want to control the landing of shark fins, all you have to do is o­ne simple thing," said Jorge Ballestero, biologist at PRETOMA.  "You have to authorize privately owned docks as ‘in the public interest' which means they would be accessible to the public and the Costa Rican Coast Guard.  Costa Rican Customs law currently prohibits foreign long line fishing vessels, the o­nes most interested in shark fins, from landing at private docks until those docks are authorized by Customs as in the public interest." 

Currently not a single private dock is authorized, yet these are the o­nly docks where foreign fishing vessels land.  For years foreign long liners have been landing hundreds of tons of shark products there, and the government has not enforced the law.   

"Nobody knows exactly what all these shark products are," said Ballestero.  "These private docks are built like fortresses with high walls.  Every landing could be purely shark fins.  Cargo declarations list merely ‘frozen fish' or ‘sharks' and not even the Coast Guard has access to these docks without a warrant." 

Continues Ballestero, "With the collaboration of other organizations, we've been able to obtain footage of vessels landing and stashing shark fins at these docks.  Furthermore, the Coast Guard has filed official denouncements to INCOPESCA about foreign vessels landing tons of shark fins at these docks.  The fact is, INCOPESCA and every relevant government agency know what's going o­n.  They know it's illegal for foreign vessels to land at these docks until these docks have been authorized, but no action has yet been taken.  INCOPESCA should be pushing with all its might to get the Customs Law enforced."