Opposing Sharks Fin Soup In Hong Kong
吃鯊魚鰭湯從明朝開始就是中國文化的一部分。這是大多數香港人在慶祝傳統節日和像婚禮和宴會這些重要場合必需的一道菜。 過去鯊魚鰭湯只是提供給富人,但是如今中產階級變得更加富裕能夠支付得起這道菜。 因此在華人社區的需求增加。 根據國家糧食聯盟和農業組織的研究,在2006年，價值10000美元的10000噸鯊魚的鰭被消耗在香港,臺灣和中國大陸。 然而,香港擁有80%的全球最高貿易需求的鯊魚鰭。(1]這反映了香港人嚴重威脅鯊魚的存在。

最近，反對鯊魚鰭湯的意識正在上升?；鶎雍鸵恍┟耖g環保組織（ENGO）更加關注這個問題。他們舉行了許多活動，鼓勵港人對魚翅湯說”不“。 在這篇文章中，我將重點放在一些個人和民間環保組織如綠色意識和世界野生動物保護組織（WWF）。 它還香港環保運動的價值進行評估。

基層組織的環境運動始終涉及到社會的福利和社會經濟問題。這意味著對這些問題的關注可能會影響他們的正常生活標準。社區參與環保運動是一種”社會行動“(2]。 公民通過自己的行為來組織自己的行為，因為他們愿意改善社會和環境。他們可以通過游說或請愿表達他們的意見。 雖然公民自己組織的群體最初往往是分散的、不協調的，同時,因為他們沒有足夠的教育和意識，他們在一開始就處于極度消極的水平。

Introduction 簡介

Eating sharks fin soup is a part of Chinese culture from Ming Dynasty. It is necessary dish for most Hong Kong people to celebrate the traditional festival and important occasions like wedding and company banquet. Sharks fin soup was only available for the rich in the past, but the middle class become more affluent to afford it. Thus the demand of it is increasing among Chinese community. According to the research of Union Nation Food and Agricultural organization in 2006, 10,000 tones worth $276million of sharks fin were consumed in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China mainland. However, Hong Kong has the highest demand which holds 80% of global trade of sharks fin. [1] It reflects that Hong Kong people seriously threaten the existence of sharks.

Recently, the awareness of opposing sharks fin soup is rising. The grassroots and some environmental non-government organizations (ENGOs) become more concerned this issue. They held many campaigns to encourage Hong Kong people say no to sharks fin soup. In this essay, I am going to focus on the movements organized by some individual and the ENGOs such as the Green Sense and the World Wildlife Found (WWF). It also evaluates their value to the Hong Kong environmental movement.

層的作用-The role of grassroots

The environment movement which is organized by the grassroots always involved their welfare and socio-economic issue. It implies that they concern about these issue may affect their standard of living normally. The community participate in environmental movement is a kind of "societal action" [2] . Citizens organize the action by themselves as they are willing to improve the society and environment. They may express their opinion through the lobbying or petition. Although groups organized by citizens themselves tend to be dispersed and uncoordinated initially. Also, they are at the extremely negative level in the beginning as they have insufficient education and awareness.

However, people understand more about different environmental problems and re-educated during this process. Later, citizens can held more rational and formal actions. People are the important power towards the environmental movement. NGOs have done a lot of works on conservation, but sometimes they may accept the apathy attitude of industries and government. "Community right-to-know laws, citizen-enforcement provisions in federal and state legislation" [3] They are giving the great pressure and influence on government policy-making.

The initial individual opposing sharks fin soup was happened in 2005 when the Hong Kong Disneyland was established. Marine conservationist Brian Darvell who lives in Hong Kong more than 20 years sent the letter to the Disney United State based chief executive that objecting the Hong Kong Disney offer sharks fin soup to wedding banquets. It is successful to get the public attention, and some of the green groups such as WWF and Greenpeace boycott the Hong Kong Disneyland if it is still apathetic. Finally, the official agrees to ban serving sharks fin soup on the banquet. It is a great victory for the individual opposing the sharks fin soup. The awareness of sharks' conservation is increasing in the society.

The advanced movement of protecting sharks fin is appeared in 2010. A video was uploaded to the Internet by the conservationist. It showed that a shark was hurt by fishermen and all its fins were cut down. This video drew the public attention. One of the nitizens called Clement Lee setting up a Facebook group which advocating people cut the gift money by 30 percent to couples if they serve sharks fin soup on the banquets. 4,000 people joined the Facebook groups within a week. [4] Later, he also required Citibank Hong Kong cancelled the discount of sharks fin soup to its credit card holder in the other Facebook group.

The activist fully utilized the power of Internet to spread the conservation message to the citizens. Many people support their action especially the youth. A newlywed, Steven Leung and Sylvia Cheung, they refused to offering sharks fin soup in their banquet. The video is successful to make the youth feeling upset and cruel to eat this traditional dish. The youth couples suggest that using the bird nest soup which is the substitute show their respected and gorgeous.

People seldom care about the wildlife problem or other environmental issue in the past. The majority of Hong Kong people think that environmental problem is not such crucial compare with the social and economic problems. Yet, it seems like a great progress as the growing of grassroots movements to protecting sharks. This victory can be attributed by several reasons.

Firstly, environmental education is well-developed. It is the formal education system to primary and secondary level since 1973. It highlights the relationship of nature and mankind, also the importance of environment. For example, an Environment Resources Center is set up by Environmental Protection Department (EPD) which renders environmental information to public. Also, the 50 million Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF) is established to funding the related research and education. [5] The youth can know that the nutrient value is not too high which can be substituted by the other food. Also, they treat the environmental sustainable as the pressing need which they should regard. Thus, citizens are willing to use their rights and power to make a change.

Secondly, well information flow has developed under the globalization. Citizens can receive and transmit the message to different regions via the Internet. More online videos related hurting sharks were uploaded. It reveals the ruthless fact of eating sharks fin soup and stimulate consumers boycott this traditional dish. Moreover, people can easily organize and get involved the campaigns by utilizing the social media platform. A study indicated that the well-developed network can encourage people connect the activists and having chance to take part in [6] . A television program which introduces the high quality of sharks fin was criticized by netizens. They also organize the Facebook group and now get 15,430 people participate. [7] Taken together, there are great differences for Hong Kong people participating to environmental movement.

ENGOs的作用-Role of ENGOs

ENGOs are the important role in Hong Kong environmental movement. They educate the public on environmental issue and supervise the work of government. In fact, ENGOs act the liaison bodies between the government and the community. Since government tend to be a passive role who need to be pushed, whereas citizens do not have sufficient knowledge and awareness. Therefore, ENGOs need to assess the government policies and suggest adequate remedies under the surveys and scientific supports for official reconsider and reference. Sometimes, the government invites ENGOs taking part in decision-making. They also become the leader of the community who help the public know their environmental and welfare needs.

Each ENGO have its own principles, belief, interests, concerns and goals, these may affect their difference among them. Some of them are prefer to cooperate with the other groups and the government to achieve their goal easily. Conversely, some organizations insist their belief and refuse to work with the others. In the following, it will focus on the works of two ENGOs toward the sharks' conservation issue including the Green Sense and WWF.

色的感覺-Green Sense

In order to boost the awareness of the new generation, they firstly organize the "Sharks We Care" campaign which requested the kindergartens, primary schools and secondary schools promising not to eat sharks fin soup. It got the 182 schools taking part in this campaign until July 2010 and promise not to serve sharks fin soup in the banquets [8] . They are keeping contact with different schools and encourage them to sign up. Also, they hold the other action in November 2010. The action called "Happy Wedding, Saves Sharks", they gathered near the venue of Wedding Hong Kong Wedding Banquet and Accessories EXPO 2010 which organized at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. They encouraged the couples selecting the restaurants which offer sustainable wedding banquets.

世界野生動物基金會(WWF)-The World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

WWF advocate the similar ideology with the Green Sense, both of them would like to enhance the awareness of public through education. WWF launched the education program recently which is called "Marine Guardian - Save the Sharks through Arts Program ". It also aims at educate the next generation understand the importance of marine life through the art exhibition, talks and teacher training workshops.

However, its campaigns are more large-scaled than the previous one. WWF has organized the "Alternative Shark-free Menu" program in 2010. It cooperates with the restaurants and urged them ticking away the sharks fin soup from the menu or choosing the sustainable dish to replace it. Furthermore, as WWF is a transnational organization, it tried to work out the consensus fishery planning with the government, fishermen and other interest groups from the Africa, Asia, American and Europe. WWF has put a great effort on promoting certification system to well-manage the sharks' fishery like the Marine Stewardship Council eco-labeling.

協作-Collaboration

To reduce the import of sharks fin, the first cooperation among the ENGOs is organized in September 2010. Nine of the ENGOs (including the Hong Kong Sharks Foundation , WWF, Green Sense and Greenpeace) and the civil party Audrey Eu required the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Donald Tsang represent all government departments to refuse serving sharks fin soup in all official banquets in his annual policy address. ENGOs forced the government should be the role for citizens to stop the consumption of sharks fin. They gave the pressure to the government by appealing citizens to send the postcards which are designed by them.

評價-Evaluation

The attitude towards eating sharks fin has changed. Sharks fin soup no longer as the "necessity" in the Chinese banquets. Some couples even advocate "Green Wedding" to promote the sustainability. Many restaurants have joined the "Alternative Shark-free Menu" program. There are 38 caterers render the shark free menu to consumers [9] . Also, according to a survey, only 3.3% of interviewers do not support the prohibition of importing sharks fin [10] .

Although the awareness of citizens has been increased, the attitude of the government toward this issue is still apathy. The Green Sense has sent the petition to 56 government departments previously and urged them issuing the guideline to the servants not serving sharks fin soup in official banquets. Only the Hong Kong Observatory has issued as the result. Whereas, the others replied that they think that "have no plans" or "think it is inappropriate". [11] The government expressed that they have already regulate the import of sharks which is controlled by "Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora" (CITES). They cannot restrict the citizens not consume the remains. It is clearly that the movements have not affected the policy-making of the government. Comparing with the other countries, the U.S. Hawaii State Government has already established the law to halt the importing of shark and prohibit the sale. But the Hong Kong government still has not any planning to conserve the sharks.

There is the long history for the Chinese community eating the sharks fin soup. It is difficult for people to change their traditional mind including the policy-makers. The government is proud by themselves that they do a lot of works to control the other environmental problems such as air pollution. As they disagree that prohibiting the import of sharks is the urging issue, hence, their attitude towards the movements is vague and impassive.

Moreover, the regulation will be affected many interest groups such as the dried seafood industry in Hong Kong. The representatives of the traders and retailers have been stormed and denied the blame of the conservationist. They also argued that these movements are totally decreasing their income. A manager indicated that around 20% of selling price has dropped within two months. [12] To consider different interest groups, the government is unwilling to intervene by setting up strict regulations.

The campaigners or the organizations are weak in the movement. Most of the individuals who against to the sharks fin are the foreigners like Brian Darvell. Their outcome is not efficient as the works only limited to the social media platform and their consuming choice. The members of the campaign do not have any obligations and forsake the groups. For the ENGOs, there is only few organizations specific concern the crisis of extinction of sharks in Hong Kong. These groups are small-scaled and feeble whereas the transnational groups like the WWF depend on the funding of enterprises and the government to operation. Therefore, the power is too weak to make the influences on the government policy-making.

結論-Conclusion

To conclude this paper, we can know that there are great progress on the protecting the wildlife of sharks. Grassroots and the ENGOs play the vital role on this movement. All of them advocate banning the import of the sharks fin and urge the restaurants and hotels to changing the traditional menu of the banquets.

Citizen is the new and powerful parties of this movement. Not only express their opinion to the related parties, but also fully utilize the Internet to adopt and release the conservative message. Increasing the participation on against sharks fin soup is meaningful toward the Hong Kong environmental movements. Also, the ENGOs also act the leading role to organize different actions in order to instill the protecting concept to the public. They become more powerful as they collaborate with each other. Generally, the awareness of citizens is increased and the demand of sharks fin decreased.

This growing movement encouraged indeed. Nevertheless, the government is still apathy toward the shark free issue. International becomes more concerned about the sharks extinction problem, but our government ignore the seriousness of the problem. Both of the individuals and the ENGOs should evaluate their work and put more effort on the problems. Eating sharks fin soup are totally the uncivilized behavior and the difficult task changing the mind of the Chinese community. It is better for the ENGOs working with government and different parties and setting up the efficient system to reach the consensus manage the shark fishery. It is time for us to action, though it is not an easy task.