"Around Taiwan island there is a serious depletion of stocks," said the OFMO's Ho. "The government in fact is encouraging fishermen to shift to other industries; sight-seeing, sport fishing, recreation, or whale-watching."
To help keep to the country's agreed-upon catch quotas, the government has also begun buying back large-scale fishing vessels in order to limit the size of the fleet. This year, 73 such vessels were bought back and next year another 120 will be purchased from their owners -- a 20 percent reduction of the nation's total fleet of large-scale vessels.
"You have to have a fleet commensurate with your quota," Ho said.
There are currently no plans to repurchase smaller-sized vessels, a point which sticks with Shao.
"If the government doesn't want me to fish, they could at least offer to buy my boat," he said. "But they want me to take tourists whale-watching!" Of the several problems and mounting pressure faced by Taiwan's fishermen, the dispute over the Diaoyutais is only the most recent. Shao sees it as a point of focus for local fishermen to vent pent-up frustrations.
"If there were still fish closer to home and we still made good money from fishing, no one would be arguing about fishing rights," he said.
For his part, Ho sees the the upcoming talks as an opportunity to put conservation on the agenda.
"Because there is an overlapping area with Taiwan and Japan's economic zones, there is an opportunity to make conservation part of the solution," he said. "But it's very hard to say what will come of these talks."
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