China’s Biggest Shipping Line Cosco Promises to Ban Shark Fins

China’s biggest shipping and logistics company, Cosco, says it is planning to implement a ban on the transport of shark fins.

The new policy was announced in a letter to the Hong Kong branch of the U.S. wildlife conservation group WildAid, according to the local South China Morning Post. However, Cosco has yet to give an indication as to when the ban would be implemented.

Cosco is the world’s fourth largest container operator and joins a host of shipping companies that have said no to transporting shark fins, although some like France’s CMA CGM and Taiwan’s Evergreen Line still carry fins from sharks that are not endangered.

The change of heart comes after the discovery earlier this month of 880 kg (nearly 2,000 lb.) of endangered hammerhead-shark fins, protected under Hong Kong law, on board a Cosco vessel from Panama. The bust was Hong Kong’s second largest shark-fin haul, the Post says.

Hong Kong is considered the capital of the world’s shark-fin trade, accounting for half of the legal trade in shark fins, according to the World Wildlife Fund, with 92% of the trade transported by ship.

[SCMP]