There was a huge sigh of relief across the nation on Thursday evening after the European Commission announced it was lifting its “yellow card” on Taiwan’s fishery industry — from the Presidential Office and the Council of Agriculture (COA) to the Kaohsiung Fishermen’s Association and its counterparts.
However, that sigh should not be taken as a sign that the nation can relax.
The commission issued the yellow card on Oct. 1, 2015, labeling Taiwan as “uncooperative” in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
IUU fishing is a major threat to the sustainability of fish stocks and the marine environment, one that has increasingly gone hand-in-hand with the abuse of migrant workers on distant-water fleets.
The yellow card was a warning that if action was not taken to remedy shortcomings in fisheries management, monitoring, sanctions and compliance with international requirements, Taiwan could be red-carded, ie, labeled as non-compliant, leading to its products being banned from the EU.
Since the EU is the world’s largest import market for fisheries products, this is no idle threat and given that the Taiwanese-flagged distant-water fleet is the second-largest in the world, in addition to Taiwanese-owned boats flagged to third countries, being red-carded would be a major blow to the industry and the nation’s economy.
Taiwan desperately needed to clean up its act. As Greenpeace said in October 2015, the council’s Fisheries Agency had a record of downplaying IUU violations and absolving violators, citing the agency’s inability to force the Pingtung County-registered Yu Fong 168 to comply with the law, even though it had been listed as an IUU vessel by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) since Dec. 11, 2009, its owner was repeatedly fined because the ship did not return to port in Taiwan and its operating license had been revoked. The boat is still on the WCPFC’s list.
That it has taken three-and-a-half years for Taiwan to work its way off the commission’s yellow card list — through twice-yearly consultations with EU officials, overhauling three fisheries acts to increase fines for illegal fishing, implementing new monitoring tools and improving the traceability of fisheries products — demonstrates just how far the nation was behind in such matters.
That the commission said it wants to establish an IUU working group with Taiwan, in addition to more consultations on labor conditions in the fishing industry, shows that much remains to be done.
The continuing abuse of migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry was cited in May last year in Greenpeace East Asia’s report Misery at Sea, the UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation’s report in September last year on IUU and human rights violations aboard the Fu Sheng No. 11 and the US Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2018 in March, which also noted that legal penalties have been “inadequate to serve as an effective deterrent.”
Yet as soon as the lifting of the yellow card was announced, there were renewed pleas from the industry for the COA to reduce the fines and penalties for contraventions of the three acts, even though the industry admits it is worried it could face sanctions again if Taiwanese boats violate international conventions.
The council has said it would consider lessening the penalties. It should not, at least not until the industry demonstrates that it can continue to abide by the reforms and new regulations.
The council and the Fisheries Agency must also prove that they can enforce the rules, something they have struggled to do due to a shortage of inspectors to conduct shipboard and foreign port monitoring.
As European Economic and Trade Office Director Madeleine Majorenko said on Thursday, the lifting of the yellow card is not the end, but “the beginning for Taiwan to fulfill its commitments to ensure the sustainability of the ocean.”
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