That the UN Ocean Conference held this week in New York City received little media attention in Taiwan was not surprising, since it is not a member of the international body.
However, as an island nation whose fisheries extend worldwide and is one of the world’s biggest seafood exporters, Taiwan should pay attention to the commitments made at the conference to see what it can do to meet the pledges, regardless of its membership status.
The conference focused on how to meet the targets that member governments agreed to two years ago in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The aim is to get governments, businesses and organizations to commit to voluntary plans to work on the problems threatening Earth’s oceans and seas: pollution, overfishing, loss of coastal habitats and acidification.
Two key announcements have come out of the conference so far: Yesterday, it was announced that nine of the world’s biggest fishing companies have pledged to help end overfishing and the use of slave labor as part of the “Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship” initiative, which is being overseen by the Stockholm Resilience Centre.
On Thursday, the Chinese, Thai, Indonesian and Philippine delegations to the conference pledged that their governments would work to keep plastics out of the oceans. The Helmholtz Centre has estimated that 75 percent of land-borne marine pollution comes from just 10 rivers, most of which are in Asia.
Taiwan has already begun to take steps to tackle the problems of overfishing, labor abuse and plastic pollution, but there is much more that needs to be done by both the government and the public.
The Act Governing Distant Water Fisheries (遠洋漁業條例) that took effect on Jan. 15 has stricter rules and bigger fines aimed at preventing overfishing and protecting migrant crew members.
However, critics have said that the Fisheries Agency took action largely due to the threat of EU sanctions, and that the government will have to put more resources and attention into ensuring that the act’s teeth have some bite to them.
How about seeing if the fishing industry can work with the Stockholm Resilience Centre to join the stewardship initiative?
The government must also do more to protect coastal fish species, considering that an Academia Sinica study published two years ago found that the number of coastal species along the northern coast had fallen from 120 to about 30 in just three decades.
The study blamed the rapid decline on overfishing, habitat destruction and pollution, and its lead researcher said that the authorities were not willing to implement measures to stop the decline on the grounds that no definite cause could be pinpointed.
Why not admit that all three are contributing to the problem and work on ways to tackle all of them?
As for onshore efforts to protect the oceans, Environmental Protection Agency Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) last month said the agency would enact policies to limit and reduce plastic use, as well as to clean the nation’s beaches and waters.
These include efforts that are to take effect next year, including expanding limits on stores giving customers free plastic bags, banning the production and import of personal care products containing plastic microbeads starting on Jan. 1, and banning the sale of such products starting on July 1.
The public could support the agency’s efforts by reducing their use of plastics bags, disposable food containers, utensils, bottles and other items in addition to properly disposing of plastic waste.
Even without WHO membership, Taiwan has demonstrated it can make a major contribution to public health efforts around the world. There is no reason it cannot make the same level of effort to protect the world’s oceans.
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