This petition is now closed because Alibaba agreed to stop enabling the sale of shark fins on their site beginning January 2009. This petition was the vehicle that allowed us to provide regular correspondence to Alibaba for over a year, sending your names and comments and some words of our own. We were not the only ones. There were several petitions. There was also a very determined man in Hong Kong, Brian Darvell, who kept insisting on meetings with Alibaba and finally got them. He received the news that Alibaba would stop the sales. This success shows how consistent and persistent action from a few different angles can wear down the resistance of firms such as this.

Jack Ma
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Alibaba Group, International Headquarters
Room 2403-05 Jubilee Centre
18 Fenwick Street
Wanchai, Hong Kong

Dear Mr. Ma,

We support Shark Savers by urging you to stop the sale of shark fins through Alibaba's online marketplace.

Alibaba is enabling an industry that is rapidly depleting the world's shark population. Approximately 100 million sharks are killed annually for their fins. Fins are often sliced off while still the shark is alive and their living, finless bodies are then tossed back into the sea to die. Growing consumer demand for shark fin soup in Asia fuels this well-documented practice. Many species are now below 10% of their former populations. Sharks are extremely slow to recover from over-fishing because it takes years to reach sexual maturity and they raise few young when compared to most fish.

Sharks are the ocean's apex predator and provide an important function in maintaining the ocean's balance. Oceans without sharks is becoming a real possibility, which could result in former prey destroying other species, including phytoplankton, which produce 50% of the earth's oxygen. Our food supply and even our oxygen could be at risk without sharks.

Alibaba argues it does nothing illegal and does not allow trade of species listed by CITES. However, many regulations protecting sharks are continually violated by fishermen, including the illegal harvesting of shark fins in protected marine parks, the practice of shark finning which is banned in 17 countries, and quotas on many endangered shark species. The nature of the shark fin industry would indicate that some percentage of the over 60 tons of shark fins offered by Alibaba sellers each year is illicitly obtained.

Please stop selling shark fins on Alibaba.

Thank you.