Sorry for not replying earlier. Have been busy working at night and sleeping by day....
Shark fin is made out of cartilage, and, as such, has no taste in itself. All of the taste in the soup comes from the condiments added to it, like beef, chicken or (other) fish. The one thing that shark fin may add is "texture," as after being cooked for a very long time, the cartilage falls apart and forms "noodles." As shark fins have become more scarce (guess why?), the supply is shifting to "make-shift" shark fin, made out from crab meat (this I've heard from friends, but I can't quite confirm).
There is no nutritional value to shark fin (it's nothing but cartilage). Indeed, it is toxic to humans due to the high concentration of the pollutants present in our oceans, particularly mercury - causing sterility in males and central nervous system defects fetuses and young children.
It is purely a status symbol, and, as the expanding middle class in China gets richer, more people will demand it and shark populations will plummet further.
Major celebrities such as Yao Ming have indeed recognized the ecological consequences of shark finning and have spoken out about the problem, calling for people not to eat shark fin soup.
While this petition may or may not work in terms of getting Alibaba.com to stop distributing shark fins, a similar campaign worked with Amazon.com. We are also pressing this issue upon Alibaba.com by conducting a concurrent e-mail campaign directed to their PR dept, linked to the online petition:
E-mail Template:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcbq44ng_3gv465j
Indeed, the petitionis working at least at the level of increasing awareness about this serious issue among people throughout the world, including those living in China and Southeast Asia. Indeed, we have just surpassed 3,000 signatures, and have people from 5 different continents represented!!!
It is clear that, even if we ban the practice of shark finning from all of the waters of the world, this is a law that would be very hard to enforce for both logistical and economic reasons (look at what's happening in Costa Rica, one of the "greenest" countries in the world. Sadly, it is not yet one of the bluest countries in the world). Hence, we are directing out efforts to addressing companies that distribute shark fins without caring to find out how the fins are obtained, and are trying to raise awareness about the consequences of shark fin soup among consumers, hoping that they'll make a conscious decision to stop eating shark fin soup, and hence curbing the demand. While changing cultural attitides may take a long time, it is certainly not impossible, and we have to start somewhere.
I encourage you to read this document, which contains a wealth of information about this problem:
E-mail Template:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcbq44ng_3gv465j
Thanks!
J.
PS: The sticky thing is a really good idea, webmaster?
