SANDAKAN: The intention of the State Government to ban shark hunting has received mixed reaction from the Sandakan Fishermen Association, restaurants and hotels here.
A partner of New Imperial Seafood Restaurant, Thomas Lau, said the government must have studied the matter with the statistics to back up their move.
“But imposing the ban without efficient enforcement and monitoring means nothing. A good example is how effective is the current ban on the sales of turtle eggs? As long as there is a demand for these eggs, supply would be met,” he said.
Lau said the people must support the move if there is sufficient proof and statistics to show that the population of sharks is reducing and the continuous shark hunting would wipe out the sharks if no action is taken to classify them as endangered species.
But the government must be cautious and look from all angles – is the ban going to affect the livelihood of the fishermen; is there any incentive or subsidies by the government to compensate them?
On the other hand, the ban would be good for the tourism industry as foreign visitors would see that Sabah respects any form of living thing and help mother earth to survive as human beings cannot alone bear the responsibility. Maintaining symbiotic balance is equally important, he pointed out.
“Maybe the government would reduce the shark hunting at the initial stage with certain quota per year. They must look into the big impact faced by fishermen, restaurant operators, hotels if such ban is being carried out hastily,” added Lau.
Meanwhile, Sandakan Fishermen Association chairman Phua Peh Chee strongly objected such a move by the government.
He said the Australian government had come out with certain technical equipment for their fishermen so that certain fish would not be hurt in the hunting process.
“We would like to have such equipment here before the government imposes a ban on shark hunting here,” said Phua.
He added that smuggling of fresh shark fins would be encouraged between borders. Fishermen would just cut the shark fins, throw their bodies into the sea and smuggle the fins out of the country.
A restaurant operator in Tawau, Kelvin Pang, said the government should understand the needs of the food sector in Sabah, especially in Tawau district, before deciding to enforce a ban on shark hunting.
Even though Pang agreed with the government in banning shark hunting in Sabah waters, but he said such action should not be fully controlled as a whole.
Pang, however, said the ban may be not a big problem for the restaurants in Sabah as a majority of them are importing the shark fins or meat from Indonesia.