A group representing Malaysian tour and travel agencies has urged its members to boycott restaurants serving shark fins, to save the country’s dwindling shark population.

The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) said the shark population in Malaysia is already depleted and that hunting them for their fins and meat needs to be stopped.

“The shark population in Sabah had declined by 80 percent over the past three decades and they are rarer in waters off peninsular Malaysia,” Tan Kok Liang, Matta vice-president, said in a statement issued late yesterday.

Tan said Matta is disappointed that the federal government has yet to act on the appeal of the Sabah government to ban shark hunting in the eastern Malaysian state.

“The remaining sharks found in Sabah attracted over 55,000 divers last year, pumping RM323 million (US$81.6 million) to the local economy, but this annual revenue will be wiped out once the sharks are further depleted,” he said.

Tan is urging tourism authorities to come up with a list of restaurants that serve shark fins on their menus so people can boycott these establishments.

“The slogan - When the buying stops, the killing can too - is just as applicable here as in other conservation efforts,” he said.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) ranked Malaysia as the world’s ninth largest shark fins producer and the third largest importer in terms of volume.

The FAO report, which was released last year, said that from 2000 to 2011, Malaysia recorded average annual shark fin imports of 1,172 tonnes, worth US$3.2 million, and average annual shark fin exports of 238 tonnes, worth US$902,000.

- dpa