PangeaSeed Presents: Shark Love

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:57:43 +0900

The summer season is officially here and that means the PangeaSeed's summer shark art exhibition, Shark Love, is about to surface. Over 30 global artists have come together donating their time and talent to spread the love and help save one of the worlds most important animals. 100 million sharks are killed annually. Join PangeaSeed for Shark Love to find out why and what you can do to save sharks from extinction.

Shark Love is a non-profit art exhibition featuring world renowned artists such as Dave Kinsey, Jim Phillips, Kozyndan, Haroshi and many more. See webflyer images for complete list of contributing artists.

The week long art exhibition will be held at Gallery T in Enoshima, Japan August 12-18. With the reception party on August 14th from 5pm featuring one of Tokyo's best djs DJ YAP, sake from Dasai and some tasty local veggie treats. You didn't think we were gonna serve seafood, did you now?

All art is available for purchase and proceeds go directly to help PangeaSeed continue to raise awareness and educate the general public on the need to protect sharks and their habitat.

Special thanks to all of the generous PangeaSeed supportes: Big love to Lush Cosmetics, Reef surfwear, US for Okinawa, Sideroom.com, IFO Skateboards, Arbor skate and snowboards, and DJ Yap.

For more info please contact us: info(at)pangeaseed.com

Or visit the PangeaSeed website: www.pangeaseed.com

Shark Love』は、最も誤解された大切な生物のために、世界

的に知られる多くのアーティストがオリジナル作品を披露

する非営利のコラボレーションアートイベントです。
毎年１億以上のサメが捕獲されており、400種類以上い

るサメのうち３分の1以上がフカヒレのための乱獲や海洋

汚染により絶滅の危機に瀕しています。
この夏のイベントでは、アートを通じて様々な人々にこの

問題を伝え、考えるキッカケをつくるものです。

■実施期間：2010年8月12日（木）～18日（水）

10am-6pm
14日はレセプションイベントあり
　　レセプションパーティ：17:00〜20:00　(

関係者のみ)
（DJライブ・アーティストによるライブペインティング

実施予定）

■入場無料（寄付歓迎！）

■実施会場：Gallery-T(ギャラリーT)
　　　　　〒251-0035 神奈川県藤沢市片瀬海岸1-9-10
小田急線・片瀬江ノ島駅より徒歩5分
江ノ電・江ノ島駅より徒歩2分
湘南モノレール・湘南江ノ島駅より徒歩3分
　　　　　　http://www.gallery-t.net/

■参加決定アーティスト
Jim Phillips, Dave Kinsey, Haroshi, Kozyndan, Wrecks, Yoh Nagao, Natsuki Wakitaなど国内外のアーティスト総勢20名。 (下記参照)

■お問い合わせ：info[at]pangeaseed.comまで

Fuji Rock Festival 2010

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:23:06 +0900

Fuji Rock Festival 2010 is just around the corner and PangeaSeed will be returning this year for round two at the NGO Village July 30-August 1!! 2010 has been declared the international year of biodiversity by the United Nations so the theme of this years NGO Village is energy and biodiversity.

Several national and international NGO’s including PangeaSeed will host information booths at the NGO Village during 3 day festival which is the biggest international rock festival in Asia. Last years attendance was around 130,000!! Headliners at this years festival include Muse, Massive Attack, Them Crooked Vultures, Roxy Music, and many many more!

Look for PangeaSeed in the NGO Village, on the Green Stage for Stage Appeal, or check out some of the PangeaSeed supporting artists like Yoh Nagao and Rah Akaishi (RAH) working their magic to raise awareness for the need to protect sharks and their habitat.

For festival and ticket information, click here!

NO FUJI NO LIFE!!!

PangeaSeed Shark March

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:45:23 +0900

Uminohi which translates to "Ocean Day" is a national holiday in Japan but there is little to no awareness of the crisis facing global shark populations and our oceans. A day this important seems like the perfect opportunity to educate and motivate positive activism throughout the country. PangeaSeed hosted and organized Japan's first shark march held in Yokohama Chinatown Monday July 19th.

The idea was to create an open dialog with the general public and encourage understanding of the need to protect sharks and the oceans while we still have the chance. Last year alone, Japan landed over 36,000 tons of sharks and Yokohama Chinatown is ground zero for the shark fin soup trade in Japan.

We greatly appreciate the support of the 20 intrepid individuals who came out to rally for sharks, the oceans, and life. We couldn’t have been as successful without your dedication.

Over 1000 information flyers were passed out to patrons of the Chinatown district for over 4 hours before the march was shut down by the police.

Two full passes were made through the entire Chinatown area boasting over 500 restaurants with the majority selling shark products in various forms from soup and ramen to supplements and make up.

Look forward to more positive action and great things to come from PangeaSeed and crew.

All photos copyright PangeaSeed and Aaron Glasson.

United nations Meeting Takes Historic Step to Ban Shark Finning at Sea

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 08:51:06 +0900

Oceanbluedivers.com
United Nations Meeting Takes Historic Step to Ban Shark Finning Ruling Signals a Turning Point for Endangered Sharks
NEW YORK, NY - In an historic step, delegates to the Fish Stocks Conference at the United Nations voted unanimously to end shark finning at sea.

The 77 nations that are Parties to the Fish Stocks Agreement mandated that sharks must now: "be landed with their fins naturally attached or through different means that are equally effective and enforceable."

The action was required to stop the slaughter of up to 73 million sharks a year, principally to make shark fin soup. Shark finning - catching sharks, cutting off the fins, and throwing them back into the sea to drown - has been compared to the killing of elephants for their tusks in its wanton cruelty. It has continued under a system in which powerful fishing nations have failed to protect the oceans they harvest, and has brought entire shark species to the brink of extinction.

Palau's Ambassador to the United Nations, Stuart Beck, said: "This ruling promises to be the beginning of the end for this murderous trade, but only strict enforcement by a determined international community will do the job. Time is running out, and this is an opportunity that must be seized."

Delegates to the meeting also adopted language to enhance the ability of small island nations to play a proactive role in future deliberations of the Regional Fisheries Management Organizations, which have responsibility for preserving the health of shark stocks. This is necessary and appropriate because the decline in shark populations will ultimately destroy the coral reefs on which they rely for their continued existence. Nations with distant water fishing fleets have traditionally dominated these organizations. The actions of the Conference will be the subject of review and adoption by the General Assembly in the fall.

Over one third of the world's shark and ray species are considered threatened or near threatened with extinction, and virtually all shark stocks are under pressure. Given this emergency, President Johnson Toribiong recently declared Palau's waters the world's first national shark sanctuary. Many other countries, including the Maldives, Australia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, Israel, Honduras, Monaco and the United States have taken steps to protect sharks, and now the State of Hawaii has joined in this growing effort to conserve the species.

Ambassador Beck said: "Through hard bargaining amongst countries a new international standard has been adopted. As the world rose up in revulsion in 1989 to avert the extinction of elephants, it once again looks to the United Nations and those who execute its mandate around the world to end the slaughter of sharks for their fins."

A major part of the effort will be to gain meaningful access to the often opaque deliberations of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations to insure their compliance with the finning ban.

The practice of shark finning, and recent seizures of contraband in Palauan waters were the subject of a Photo Exhibition titled "Sharks Attacked: The Ongoing Scandal of Shark -Finning." at the UN during the Fish Stocks meeting.

Kesennuma City: The Shark Finning Capital of Japan

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:30:43 +0900

PangeaSeed supporter Alex Hofford came to Japan last week to document the shark fin trade in Kessenuma City. Please share this post and the message that the shark finning issue is very real in Japan. We need all the support and understanding possible to stop the decimation of sharks in Japan.

Alex Hofford Photography

KESEN-NUMA CITY, JAPAN - It's 5am on the the north eastern tip of Japan's main island of Honshu, and 75 tons of dead shark is being meticulously arranged into a neat grid of tidy piles, of twenty sharks per pile.

If you thought shark finning was exclusively a Chinese problem, think again. Welcome to Kesen-numa City, Japan's shark fin capital.
Here, six days a week, small teams of Japanese workers go about the hushed business of industrial shark-finning.

By 6.30am, with piles arranged, the sharks are disemboweled first. Hearts are ripped efficiently from bodies by men wearing brightly coloured rubber boots and aprons. At 7am, shark corpses are cleaned of their blood by workers wielding water hoses. And by 8am, small teams are silently moving up and down aisles and rows like robots in a Japanese car factory, quickly slicing off every dorsal, pectoral and tail fin from the lifeless, grey lumps. Big hungry black crows squawk in the shadows, looking for bloody morsels. And shark fins plop with regularity into small yellow plastic baskets. The baskets fill up fast, are then weighed, and finally carried to a nearby truck, where a man with a notepad strikes a deal. At 9.30am, it's all over for another day. Fork lift trucks scoop up tons of limbless carcasses, then dump them into a high-sided truck. The process is a brutal sight to behold, and not for the faint-hearted.

The fishing port of Kesen-numa City is located in Miyagi Prefecture in North East Japan, and is the country's only port dedicated to catching sharks.

Over two days in early July this year, I saw 119 tons of blue shark (Prionace glaucaof), ten tons of salmon shark (Lamna ditropis), and three tons of short fin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) landed on the dock at Kesen-numa. Not to mention several tons of endangered bluefin tuna, (Thunnus thynnus), but that's a whole other story. Taking government transparency to another level, landed shark tonnage numbers are provided daily by the port of Kesen-numa's Japanese only website, which is publicly, (and apparently unashamedly), available.

About half of the shark fin that is processed in Kesen-numa City is destined for China, mainly Hong Kong and Shanghai. For wealthy Chinese, shark fin from Kesen-numa is seen as a premium, or luxury, brand. Mr Hatakeyama, 45, a shark fin processor from Kesen-numa, said, "Quite a bit of shark fin is sent to Shanghai from here as there are many rich people there. Our shark fin here can command higher prices than Chinese shark fin sourced from elsewhere in Asia, the Middle East or Africa. Even though the Chinese have their own shark fin, they prefer Japanese brands".

Given the delicacy's roots, this is hardly surprising, but what is more unexpected is that a considerable portion of the shark fin processed in Kesen-numa is bound for domestic consumption. Like in China, shark fin soup is common place at weddings, company banquets and all sorts of other special occasions where the paying host wants to show off their wealth. And much of the shark fin produced at small food factories dotted around the city ends up bound for Chinese restaurants in Japan, of which there are many. The rest is sold to hotels to include on their menus for newly weds and for corporate banquets.

In olden times, shark fin was sometimes used as a substitute for gold when Japanese merchants traded with China. Understandably, and for this same reason, the exact location for fin drying in Japan remains a closely guarded secret. And a significant amount is shipped to China for sun-drying, although the exact drying location in China is an even bigger secret.

These days, the port of Kesen-numa feels like a town down on it's luck. Once thriving, today there is a sense of decay in the air. Overgrown and rusty. Similarly, attitudes have yet to move with the times. As public sentiment slowly turns against shark fin soup in Hong Kong, what was once an ancient tradition in this forgotten corner of Japan, is, according to conservationists, wreaking havoc on shark populations worldwide. Small fishing boats used catch sharks as part of the city's ancient tradition.

But this tradition, coupled with modern fishing methods like the advent of strong and long fishing lines, and boats that can go further and stay out of port for longer, is a recipe for disaster for the sharks. According to the Japan Fisheries Agency, the nation's national shark fin catch nearly halved since the late 1960's. In 1969, the total number of sharks caught and landed in Japan was around 65,000 tons. Last year's total was around 35,000 tons, and Kesen-numa accounts for around 90% of all sharks caught nationally.

Whether the global marine ecosystems can suffer such an onslaught is debatable. The arguments against shark-finning are, by now, well known in Hong Kong. It is said that sharks take decades to reach adulthood, and by ripping them out of the oceans at such an unprecedented rate, we are depriving them of them of the chance to reproduce, and thus repopulate their decimated numbers. Cruelty may be the issue at stake for those who see the wasteful practice of slicing the fins off the shark at sea and tossing them back over the side of the boat, but in Kesen-numa the whole shark is landed. It is said that every part of every shark landed at Kesen-numa is processed there and then consumed. Even it's heart. For the people of Kesen-numa are seen as a little strange by ordinary Japanese. Locals can ill afford the shark fin soup available at many of the town's small side street restaurants, but the locals have developed a peculiar, if bloodthirsty, fondness for raw salmon shark heart sashimi. An exotic 'delicacy', which, according to local people, is consumed nowhere else in Japan. It is left up to the tourists who visit Kesen-numa to order the city's famous speciality, shark fin soup.

And tourists do come. Some are attracted to the splendid hiking along Miyagi Prefecture's rugged coastline, whilst others are seafood aficionados, looking for their next hit of sublime ultra-fresh exotic seafood. Early risers among them will inevitably make their way to the dock, where they are confronted with one of the most bloody spectacles they are likely ever to witness in their lives - Kesen-numa's very own industrial shark-finning show.

A quick walk around the town, reveals a parallel universe, where even the most basic concepts of marine conservation do not exist. Just a stone's throw from the dock, is the 'Kesen-numa Rias Shark Museum', which visitors enter through a giant set of shark jaws. Once inside, tourists are first confronted by real copies of faded front pages of tabloid newspapers from around the world that sensationalize shark attacks on swimmers. Make no mistake, sharks are bad, evil, a threat to humanity and they should be erdaicated from the face of the earth, the headlines, and so it seems the museum's message screams at us. This despite the fact that humans are statistically far more likely to die from crossing the road, than from an attack by a shark. After passing exhibits relating to the natural history of sharks at the half way mark, visitors leaving the museum pass a glass display box filled with all kinds of products one can make from shark; shark fin soup in a can, shark cartillage pills which are supposedly good for joint pain, and hand-crafted handbags made from shark leather. But not a word about conservation and the critical situation facing global shark stocks due to over-fishing.

Could a new battle between marine conservationists battling to save the sharks and the Japanese fishing lobby be on the horizon? First there was the annual showdown in the Southern Ocean between the Japanese whaling fleet and the environmental groups Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd to save the whale. Then there was the runaway success of the Oscar-winning documentary 'The Cove' which exposed the brutal Japanese trade in captive dolphins. One would think the tide is slowly turning.
Isn't it time Kesen-numa City, Japan's dirty little shark secret, was shut down too?