With ecotourism, a country has the opportunity to benefit financially from live sharks. In 2013, 600,000 tourists observing sharks spent more than $314 million a year, supporting 10,000 jobs (Barnes, 2013). Comparatively, a dead shark is worth much less- a bowl of shark fin soup currently sells for as much as US$100.
International markets have begun to recognize the economic importance of live sharks. In Costa Rica, a set of shark fins sold at a fishing market is valued at around $200. Meanwhile, a single shark in the country’s biggest scuba diving attraction will contribute $1.6 million during its lifetime (Barnes, 2013). The Australian Institute of Marine Science (2015) finds that having a single reef shark appearing at shark diving sites in Palau nets $179,000 annually and $1.9 million over its lifetime. The same shark is worth $108 dead at a market.
Shark watching has gained popularity only recently. Barnes (2013) predicts the current number of shark watchers could double and potentially net 780 million dollars within the next 20 years. The economic benefits of live-shark tourism could eventually outweigh the demand for shark fins, leading countries that aim to capitalize on such forms of tourism to protect their sharks.
Shark ecotourism provides an opportunity for the citizens of third world countries to find employment and make a profit. Countries that sharks frequent such as Zanzibar, Kiribati, and Tonga are known to have a low global domestic product (GDP) and high unemployment rates (International Monetary Fund, 2017). Consequently, poverty leads to many of the harmful practices centered around shark finning. One of the solutions that may help this problem is the introduction of ecotourism.
Theoretically, a shark kept alive may sustain a fisher and their family much longer than if they killed the shark for its fins. Indeed, some groups are converting fishing vessels into shark watching vessels, which allows the fisherman, as captain, to avoid corruption and still reap a direct financial benefit.
Gallagher and Hammerschlag (2011) observed that most of the profits from local ex- fishers’ shark watching operations remain within the community. Examples of this occur in the Bahamas, where conservation initiatives have been implemented over the last 25 years. The Bahamian dive industry is the largest in the world, contributing $113.8 million to its local economy. Shark tourism is directly responsible for 99% of that revenue (Haas, Fedler, and Brooks, 2017).
