BRUNEI announced ban on catching, landing of all shark species-- includes supplements, medicine, and will be effective on Jan 2014
Imam Musthofa
Shark ban includes supplements, meds
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
THE ban on landing and catching of sharks in Brunei and the use of the fish as an ingredient has been expanded to include supplements and medicines, the Minister of Industry and Primary Resources said yesterday.
In a telephone interview, Yang Berhormat Pehin Orang
Kaya Seri Utama Dato Seri Setia
Hj Yahya Begawan Mudim Dato
Paduka Hj Bakar (pictured) said the ministry would be including supplements and medicines containing shark cartilage and bones in the prohibition.
"It will not just be shark fin, but anything with sharks in it," he said.
Chan Kon Fong, owner of San Tak Onn Dispensary and Sea Products, said a lot of food supplements with shark ingredients were currently sold in Brunei.
Chan sells Chinese herbs and medicines, as well as various grades of shark fin, which are priced from around $500 per
kilogramme for low-grade ones to $1,800 per kg for high grade products.
He sources his shark fin supply locally, from fishermen who catch the sharks and dry their fins for selling.
"I recently bought an Omega-3 supplement that uses shark ingredients from Brunei, and shark bones are also crushed to add calcium for some medicines and supplements, so these should be banned too," he said.
Chan welcomed the government's move to give retailers and establishments a grace period for clearing their inventories.
The move, he said, would give him a fair amount of time to clear his shark fin stock.
"If this was immediate, then maybe if someone wanted to buy all of it from me they could," he said.
He also said that if he is still unable to clear his stock by the January 2014 deadline, he will be taking them off the shelves.
When contacted yesterday, a representative of GNC (B) Sdn
Bhd said that the vitamin store currently carries one product with shark cartilage, retailing at $45.60 for a 90 capsule bottle.
There were no further comments given as of press time.
As this developed, Abdul Halidi Salleh, acting director of the Department of Fisheries, told The Brunei Times that he was not aware of the existence of fishermen who harvest sharks and process them for sale, but added that he wouldn't
be surprised if there were one or two who do these in the country.
According to a report published by The Atlantic, an online publication, shark cartilage is used as adjunctive therapy in cancer, osteoarthritis, psoriasis, and macular degeneration.
The American Cancer Society stated on its website that shark liver oil is widely used alongside conventional cancer treatment in northern Europe and is sold as a dietary supplement in the United States.
YB Pehin Dato Hj Yahya said studies had shown that shark meat might expose users to high levels of
methylmercury, an organic form of mercury which is a neurotoxin.
"It is hoped that with this ban, it would become a lesson to us that fish resources, especially in Brunei
Darussalam are not infinite to be exploited as much as one can," he said during the announcement at the World Ocean's Day celebration over the weekend.
The minister had also said that the ban on the import and trade of shark products had been in place since August last year.
"Fish resources around the waters of Brunei Darussalam, like other country, are declining significantly. The fish resources are now about 21 per cent of what they were in 1999 and the dwindling number is mainly due to
overfishing," he had said.
The Brunei Times
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