Since the primary consumers of sharkfin soup/other shark-related products are Asian, I'd launch an ad campaign across Asia. Try to get people all across Asia using commercials and public awareness.

Or, view my 3rd source, and support companies that manufacture fake shark fins.
Source(s):
http://www.thailandlife.com/sharkfinsoup.html
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/stop-shark-fin-soup
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/10/19/shark-fin-animal.html

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I saw them selling that in China Town.


It should be illegal!
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This reminds me of the dolphin slaughters by Japanese fishermen as well. I don't know that there is a way of stopping it, short of making it an international crime and vesting the UN with enforcement responsibility.

There may be ways of mitigating the population loss of course -- from negative advertising to environmental terrorism (not a good idea, I know) to promoting shark farming. The latter might be rather expensive of course, depending on the varying market price of shark chum, and would not make some people feel better about the whole concept anyway.

Unfortunately, it may be a losing battle, just as in the case of PETA fighting against the farming and slaughter of livestock; people generally value the flavor of their food over animal life.

*disclaimer* -- I'm no activist, I'm an omnivore, and I enjoy both beef and seafood of all sorts :)
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It all starts with the kids. Teach them in school how bad shark fishing is and they'll yell at their parents whenever they buy them. When they grow up they'll hopefully not buy shark fins themselves.
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Abolish shark fin soup.
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I watched a documentary about this on CNN. Much of the exports are brought to Taiwan. I think the only way to stop this is to stop eating sharksfin.
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Product placement in the next Angelina Jolie movie.

Jolie walks into a restraunt to meet with the person she is going to {Kill | Hire | Seduce} she notices that {he | she} has already arrived and ordered dinner.

Jolie: Sorry I'm late, the traffic was horrible, and I never trust the valet with my {Expensive Car}. Thanks for ordering.

Jolie takes a sip of the soup.

Jolie (spitting the food out and covering her host{ess}): God, what the hell is that it's horrible.

Host{ess}: I'm sorry the Shark fin soup is a delicacy here.
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I live in Hong Kong, specifically, on a road called 'Dried Seafood Street. It has hundreds of shops along the street that sell all manor of dried sea food products. Of course, they are full of Shark Fins. Some shops have huge fins just on display, that people aren't even going to buy.
It's a sad state of affairs.
The problem is that Shark Fin soup is a very traditional food here. It's eaten at parties, weddings (i've been to 4 here), all kinds of special events. It's a symbol of wealth as it's expensive to buy.

'Fake' shark fin soup is now available in some restaurants but of course it's not as popular as the real thing.

I think an earlier poster hit the nail on the head - educate the young. I imagine It will take a generation or two, at least, for a traditional food to disappear, (thats if the sharks don't run out first) but I can't see advertising campaigns to be particularly effective.
Source(s):
Personal experience.

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Well, why should we stop it?
It's their part of culture and tradition. Will we stop eat beef or chicken if they ask us to?
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Clearly the best course of action is to genetically engineer new breeds of shark. These sharks will look and act exactly like existing sharks. The only difference will be that their fins will taste more or less like a combination of earwax, vomit, and earthworm entrails.
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Shark meat is rather tasty. If there was increased awareness about how good shark tastes then there should be a big drop in the number of sharks which are caught solely for their fins.
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Since it's mainly a Chinese delicacy, served in China, I would say not, there is nothing any of us can do about it.

But the page I made for Mahalo has information from the Humane Society, www.sharktrust.org and SharkWater.com to help educate the public.
Source(s):
http://www.mahalo.com/Shark_finning

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Sadly there may be no "easy" way to accomplish this from a mathematical game theoretic view as individuals won't necessarily do what is best for the planet when faced with personal and individual choice. Market economics likely won't make the cost preventative until the sharks have been so over hunted that scarcity and demand drives prices out of reach.

However, here is one surreptitious and underhanded method of driving down demand for shark fin soup precipitously. Unfortunately it involves instilling some general amount of panic and fear into the general population as well as some severe financial repercussions upon the people who hunt, cook, serve, and otherwise make their living on the shark fin market. In a nutshell, it would involve spreading the rumor that sharks are susceptible to a damaging cartilaginous disease that directly affects shark fin, and that it is potentially damaging to humans who might consume it. This method of (shark) "attack" would likely instill the type of market effects one sees on beef when bovine spongiform encephalitis (also known as Mad Cow Disease) reports increase within the media or when Avian Bird Flu epidemics break out and the fowl markets in Asia plummet.

Interestingly, one could also take advantage of some of the theories put forth by Malcolm Gladwell in his book "The Tipping Point," so that the rumor passes into direct circulation within the broader (I'm guessing mostly Asian) market that consumes shark fin soup.

Perhaps Jason Calacanis, with his "maven" and "connector" status (as defined by Gladwell) would be in a particularly unique position to begin such a rumor and help with propagating it into broad circulation. It could start with some innocuous tweets that are re-tweeted, move into a few blog postings within the net, eventually be pushed up to the level of Mahalo.com search listings, a related post or two on sites like Wikipedia, more blog postings, a possible pick up of the story by the mainstream media, perhaps finding a colluding oceanic zoologist to provide "supporting" scientific proof and a statement, after which general mass hysteria breaks out and the fortunes of the shark fin soup market fall desperately. One could generally stage this as something akin to a modern day Orson Wells-type "War of the Worlds" announcement to see what might occur.

I do remind everyone of the strong caveat that the distal affect of slowing shark fin hunting will likely occur, but there will also be a resulting and unfortunate proximal affect of the financial impact on those who make their living upon the shark market and that most of the boats, other capital, financial, and human labor will redirect themselves to hunting and likely overfishing of other sea creatures to compensate for their fortunes.
Source(s):
http://www.mahalo.com/Creutzfeldt-Jakob_Disease
http://www.mahalo.com/Mad_Cow_Disease
http://www.mahalo.com/Avian_flu
http://www.gladwell.com/
http://www.mahalo.com/Malcolm_Gladwell
http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624/...
http://www.sharks.org/

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