The waters that surround Taiwan and the nation’s role in the world’s oceans have been the focus of top-level attention this year, as the government has endeavored for the EU to lift its yellow card on the deep-waters fishery industry and to win passage of the Ocean Basic Act (海洋基本法).
The EU on June 27 removed Taiwan from its list of uncooperative nations in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, while the Legislative Yuan passed the act on Friday last week.
The act is intended to ensure Taiwan sustainably uses the sea and its resources, and facilitates collaboration on international marine affairs by educating the public about the oceans, building a high value-added marine industry, promoting environmental friendly measures and engaging in international maritime exchanges.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and other officials this week talked up marine education, recreation and protection. Tsai spoke about encouraging the public to learn more about the oceans and develop an interest in fishing, while Su said that Taiwan as an ocean nation needs to pay tribute to the sea.
Even before the act was passed, the Executive Yuan was planning a more vigorous approach in cleaning the nation’s coastline by charging eight agencies overseen by the Environmental Protection Administration with removing garbage, discarded fishing gear and driftwood.
However, as with much of the nation’s legislation, the devil is in the details, and when it comes to the Ocean Basic Act, much remains unknown.
Under the act, the Executive Yuan must produce a white paper setting out the government’s approach to ocean affairs within a year and establish a marine development fund.
If the government is serious about protecting the world’s oceans, and not just with promoting recreational fishing and the deep-waters fishing industry, it should review the report issued on Thursday by Greenpeace International, titled Ghost Gear: The Abandoned Fishing Nets Haunting Our Oceans.
Citing a 2009 UN Food and Agricultural Organization report and a 2014 study published on PLOS One, Greenpeace said an estimated 640,000 tonnes of fishing industry gear is lost or abandoned in the oceans annually, including nets, packing containers and buoys, accounting for 10 percent of the plastic waste in the oceans. By weight alone, as much as 70 percent of the microplastics on the surface of the oceans comes from fishing activities, with more than half from discarded buoys, it added.
Not only is ghost gear deadly to marine life, it is a hazard to ship navigation, the report said. Greenpeace is urging governments to take three actions: agreeing by next spring on a “Global Ocean Treaty” to provide protection for marine life in international waters; adopting the solutions and best-practice protocols suggested by the Global Ghost Gear Initiative; and taking steps to address marine pollution through regional and international organizations.
As Taiwan is not a UN member, it cannot sign the proposed Global Ocean Treaty, but it certainly can follow through on the second and third recommendations.
Taiwan operates one of the world’s largest fleets of deep-sea fishing vessels, if not the largest. It is a major player in the global seafood industry and a member of several regional fisheries management organizations.
If the nation takes action on ghost gear, it could have a major impact on the problem and the fishery industry.
A week ago today, the government declared that starting next year, Taiwan would join with other nations around the world in recognizing June 8 as World Oceans Day.
It would be great if by that day, the government could announce that it is committed to eliminating the threat that ghost gear poses to marine, human and other life.
Taiwan has lost Trump. Or so a former State Department official and lobbyist would have us believe. Writing for online outlet Domino Theory in an article titled “How Taiwan lost Trump,” Christian Whiton provides a litany of reasons that the William Lai (賴清德) and Donald Trump administrations have supposedly fallen out — and it’s all Lai’s fault. Although many of Whiton’s claims are misleading or ill-informed, the article is helpfully, if unintentionally, revealing of a key aspect of the MAGA worldview. Whiton complains of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s “inability to understand and relate to the New Right in America.” Many
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month raised its travel alert for China’s Guangdong Province to Level 2 “Alert,” advising travelers to take enhanced precautions amid a chikungunya outbreak in the region. More than 8,000 cases have been reported in the province since June. Chikungunya is caused by the chikungunya virus and transmitted to humans through bites from infected mosquitoes, most commonly Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. These species thrive in warm, humid climates and are also major vectors for dengue, Zika and yellow fever. The disease is characterized by high fever and severe, often incapacitating joint pain.
In nature, there is a group of insects known as parasitoid wasps. Their reproductive process differs entirely from that of ordinary wasps — the female lays her eggs inside or on the bodies of other insects, and, once hatched, the larvae feed on the host’s body. The larvae do not kill the host insect immediately; instead, they carefully avoid vital organs, allowing the host to stay alive until the larvae are fully mature. That living reservoir strategy ensures a stable and fresh source of nutrients for the larvae as they grow. However, the host’s death becomes only a matter of time. The resemblance
Most countries are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with condemnations of militarism and imperialism, and commemoration of the global catastrophe wrought by the war. On the other hand, China is to hold a military parade. According to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, Beijing is conducting the military parade in Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3 to “mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.” However, during World War II, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had not yet been established. It