{"id":10220,"date":"2011-12-30T05:45:37","date_gmt":"2011-12-30T05:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=10220"},"modified":"2011-12-30T05:45:37","modified_gmt":"2011-12-30T05:45:37","slug":"cnmi-champions-shark-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cnmi-champions-shark-protection\/","title":{"rendered":"CNMI champions shark protection"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>By Haidee V. Eugenio<br \/>\nReporter<\/div>\n<p>If there&#8217;s one thing that shone a positive international spotlight on the CNMI in 2011, it was the signing of a law that made the Commonwealth the first U.S. territory to ban shark finning.<\/p>\n<p>Shark finning is the removal and retention of shark fins and the discarding of the rest of the fish.<\/p>\n<p>Former lieutenant governor and former speaker Diego Benavente championed the cause after picking up the idea from Hawaii. In turn, the CNMI inspired Guam to also push for passage of a similar bill.<\/p>\n<p>Benavente, who stepped down as a member of the House of Representatives six months after his shark fin ban bill became law on Jan. 27, said his legislation will make a difference not only in the lives of CNMI people but also the people in other parts of the world by helping to protect sharks and the marine environment.<\/p>\n<p>Within minutes of Gov. Benigno R. Fitial&#8217;s signing of Benavente&#8217;s bill, major international animal conservation groups such as Shark Savers, Humane Society International and WildAid lauded the CNMI.<\/p>\n<p>The CNMI&#8217;s shark finning ban law followed suit behind Palau&#8217;s creation of a shark sanctuary in 2009, Hawaii&#8217;s law banning all shark products in 2010, and President Obama&#8217;s enactment of the Shark Conservation Act on Jan. 4, 2010.<\/p>\n<p>The CNMI also joined the Maldives and Raja Ampat, Indonesia in protecting sharks.<\/p>\n<p>CNMI Public Law 17-27 prohibits possession, selling, offering for sale, trading, or distributing shark fins in the CNMI but allows catching of sharks for subsistence or non-commercial purposes.<\/p>\n<p>Restaurants in the CNMI, however, were given up to 90 days from Jan. 27 to serve shark fin soup, sell or offer for sale shark fins. By end April, it&#8217;s already illegal to do so. To date, authorities have yet to report whether any entity has already been caught or sanctioned as a result of the shark protection law.<\/p>\n<p>Every year, up to 73 million sharks are used in shark fin soup and the trade has been the major factor in the decimation of global shark populations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Haidee V. Eugenio Reporter If there&#8217;s one thing that shone a positive international spotlight&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}