please will you put your hands up if you
think that this movie has helped change
your perception of sharks okay me too
well I felt the same way as you did for
a long time
and then things changed as a 12 or 13
year old I grabbed a copy of Jaws on VHS
cassette and I put it into the Machine
and I sat on the sofa with just a
cushion for protection and I watched the
entire thing I think a lot like this I
was transfixed and terrified and ever so
slightly grateful that at such a tender
age I’ve been given this terrific
insight for how sharks work so it really
won’t surprise you will it
when 17 years later when I like to scuba
dive
I had just one question for my dive
instructor what do you do if you see a
shark underwater he said don’t worry
about it don’t worry about it what kind
of strategy is that have you seen jaws
but anyway I did qualify as a diver four
weeks later in the Egyptian Red Sea and
I had the time of my life I fell in love
with all the tiny little critters that
nestled in and amongst the corals I fell
in love with the big stuff – we were
buzzed by turtles eagle rays with
wingspans like this came out of the
gloom like flying carpets and four of us
on a safety stop had the privilege of a
five or six minute encounter with a pod
of dolphins being underwater was my new
happy place but of course there was one
fish that was conspicuous by its absence
from my dive logbook on that particular
trip and that was a shock at the time I
kind of said to myself well why go spoil
a terrific holiday by coming
face-to-face with a man-eating shark but
as I spent more time underwater in more
far-flung places I actually stopped
asking the question what do you do if
you see a shark underwater and instead I
asked a very different question
where have all the sharks gone you see
it really didn’t seem to matter whether
I deliberately chose dive sites with
shark in the name like shark reef or
shark bay or shark alley there simply
didn’t seem to be any sharks so when I
came home from one particular trip I
decided to do some research into sharks
and shark numbers it turns out that I
wasn’t just an unlucky diver it turns
out I was about 30 years too late to the
sport you see from about 1970 onwards
the advancements in fishing fleets and
fishing techniques simply meant that
sharks had nowhere left to hide as I
research the numbers I was utterly
shocked see around the world a hundred
and eighty countries fish for sharks and
between them they catch a staggering 73
million sharks every year that’s 200,000
sharks every day or roughly – every
second and the reason they were catching
fish so very fast was all to do with
this shark fins shark fins the title
ingredient in shark fin soup shot fins
have rapidly become one of the most
valuable seafood items on the planet and
certainly it was the fact that wasn’t
lost on many unscrupulous fishermen who
rather than pay for the fuel to
transport an entire shark carcass back
to port instead decided to take just the
valuable bit in a practice known as
shark finning they would bring the shark
to the boat and then systematically hack
off its dorsal fin its pectoral fins and
its tail fin before throwing it
overboard to die as a result
iconic species of sharks like the
hammerhead the thresher the oceanic
whitetip and even the great white have
seen their numbers depleted by about 80
to 90 percent in the past 50 years so
I’m sure that you can see that as a
diver I rapidly came to the conclusion
that the only thing that stood between
me and an underwater shark encounter was
a bowl of soup a bowl of soup that was
only once ever served to Chinese Empress
but now in a booming Asian economy was
widely regarded as an overt
demonstration of wealth and prestige so
when I discovered that a local
restaurant was selling shark fin soup I
knew that I needed to do something about
it I went to speak to to the restaurant
manager with an invitation for him to
stop selling shark fin soup
he was so good and generous that he
allowed me to tell him everything that I
knew I told him that right now sharks
were being killed faster than they could
reproduce I told him that right now one
in four shark species is listed as
threatened and scientists think that if
nothing changes by the Year 2048
we could lose many shark species forever
that’s in our lifetime to counter his
argument that sharks are just bad
animals I have to say I disagree I think
they’re remarkable animals after all
they’ve been swimming it in our oceans
for 450 million years that’s long before
the dinosaurs walked the earth they
survived for mass extinctions develop 3
more senses than us and yet now they
only have man to fear I told them that
great white sharks don’t eat everything
in their path in fact great whites can
typically go eight to ten weeks between
meals I’ve talked to him about trophic
cascade and what would happen to the
fragile marine food web if we carry on
taking sharks out of the oceans
worst-case scenario is that we will lose
all of the familiar seafood that we know
and rely on as a source of protein and
worst case scenario is that the oceans
will become smothered by algae blooms
that will literally cripple the oceans
ability to produce 50 percent of the
oxygen that we breathe I felt pretty
good I felt pretty good up until the
point when he asked me who do you
represent and then all of my arguments I
kind of felt them dilute you know
because I could only answer that
honestly and authentically and that was
to tell him me as I walked home I vowed
that I wanted to do something to
champion sharks and shark conservation
over the coming weeks I visited the
restaurant over and over typically
taking newspaper cuttings with me to but
to help back up my invitation and on the
last visit he told me they were going to
change the menu and stop selling shark
fin soup I was so excited this time when
I walked home I felt very differently I
thought if I could stop this restaurant
for in selling shark fin – what if I
could stop others what if Britain could
become the first country in the world to
ban shark fin soup over the coming
months alongside my full-time job in my
spare time I worked on a plan that would
identify businesses or identifying
inspire businesses that were selling
shark products to stop and at the same
time engage with individuals and
restaurant goers and invite them to give
shark products and this because it
seemed to me that if there was no market
for shark products then there would be
no incentive to hunt them and that
really became the cornerstone of the
charity that I founded called bike back
but I certainly knew that one man in
Kingston upon Thames couldn’t take on
the entire country alone and what I’ve
discovered is that if you have a passion
for doing good then good people will
find you and that’s being so excited
because I really wanted to run a charity
that would appeal to doers people that
were prepared to have the same
conversation that I’d had but in their
own hometown so I want to buy back to
become a place of resource and
inspiration and that’s what we’ve done
and we have two very exciting tools in
our campaign toolbox that help
accelerate those conversations
the first is terrifically simple it’s a
downloadable letter that can be
presented to try Chinese restaurants
it’s an invitation for them to stop but
to give individuals the courage and the
confidence
and the credibility to actually deliver
the letter it’s already being co-signed
by our patron Steve Backshall along with
Gordon Ramsay and Hugh phony waiting
stall amongst other notable names the
second tool is equally powerful if not
more powerful we were very lucky to win
the admiration of the advertising agency
over Vere Mather who created for us a
45-second TV commercial pro bono the
commercial was shortlisted for three
awards and it has gone on to be watched
remember nine hundred thousand times on
it’s not easy viewing and I make no
apology for that but I would like to
show it to you now
like I said it isn’t easy viewing and
it’s not easy viewing because what
you’ve just seen is genuine footage old
fisherman around the world
cutting the fins of her living shark
before discarding it if there are two
things to like about the film I think
they’re this once you see it you can’t
unsee it
and the second is I think regardless of
your stance on sharks you have to admit
that that is barbaric wrong has no place
in the 21st century and is the marine
equivalent of killing an elephant for
its tusks but I don’t want this to be
about doom and gloom far from it because
there’s an awful lot of hope for sharks
out there around the country from London
to Bristol Birmingham Manchester
Liverpool and Leeds and everywhere in
between people who have been fired
flying the buyback flag in their own
neighborhood and with terrific success
five years ago there were 63 restaurants
in Britain selling shark fin soup there
are now just 24 we’ve stopped 39
restaurants in the country from selling
shark fin soup including the country’s
only michelin-starred Chinese restaurant
we are well on our way to succeeding in
our goal you’ll also remember that I
talked about identifying other
businesses that were profiting from dead
sharks and we’ve been equally successful
through our online campaigns – because
of our campaigns we managed to get Asda
to stop selling a hundred thousand
portions of shark every year we’ve
managed to get macro a nationwide
cash-and-carry to stop selling shark to
independent restaurants and last year we
got Iceland Foods to remove shark from
its exotic range of meat we’ve also
managed to get the country’s leading
health food store Holland and Barrett to
remove shark cartilage capsules from
five hundred and eighty stores we’ve
tussled with Tesco’s over the sale of an
inappropriate t-shirt that said that
real men fish for sharks we’ve even had
a run-in with innocent drinks over their
ill-advised inclusion of 50 shark
fishing trips as part
compact promotion a competition prize to
win and even our beloved Mary Barry has
had a slap on the wrist for her
inclusion of a shark recipe in one of
her cookbooks and all of these things
have occurred because people are now
prepared to stand up and say that they
think that sharks deserve the same level
of respect or reverence as lions and
leopards and tigers and for all of you
guys who had your hands up at the
beginning of the presentation I’d like
to remind you this Jaws wasn’t a
documentary last year more people die
from toasters from cows from bee stings
from falling bending machines in fact
last year more people died from taking
selfies without paying proper attention
than they did from shark attacks and
this bit I’m excited to tell you on a
personal note three months after
launching buyback I found myself on the
east coast of Mexico on the Yucatan
Peninsula and that’s where I had my
first underwater shark encounter six of
us were diving together and my buddy
grabbed my arm and he gave me the
underwater signal for shark and he
pointed in that direction I span around
and they’re about 20 meters away with
this dusky shark I must admit my heart
skipped a beat which I can only assume
was a nod to a 40-year old Hollywood
movie but after that just became the
most serene magical and memorable
experience as it came round we kind of
pirouette it in the water to keep our
eyes on it not because we were afraid
but because this was a moment in time
that was so precious and magical after
all this was an apex predator and we
were in its environment and yet it
showed us no interest and no malice it
was the moment that truly cemented in my
mind that I want to commit the rest of
my life to protecting sharks but I do
know still that despite how I feel
sympathy for sharks is in short supply
where all of our breakthroughs have
occurred because of conversations so I’d
like you to have a conversation I’d like
you to speak with your friends and with
a phone
in your colleagues and tell them please
that the world’s most misunderstood and
the line creature is being pushed to the
brink of extinction
please give sharp products and miss an
if you see shark on a menu talk to the
management invite them to stop because
if you’ll do that for me and for the
Sharks
I’m utterly convinced that we can make shark fin soup history thank you