Taiwanese distant-water fishing vessels have once again been accused of shark finning and killing vulnerable marine animals, and migrant crew members have complained of frequent physical violence, the UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation said in a report earlier this week.
Following its report about illegal activities on the Fuh Sheng No. 11 (福甡11號) published in September, the foundation on Wednesday released another investigative report about five other fishing vessels flying the Republic of China flag or owned by Taiwanese.
The crew on all five boats have said they were ordered to remove shark fins and throw the rest of the animals overboard, the foundation said, adding that some were also asked to illegally catch dolphins and use their meat as shark bait.
It also released a nine-minute film, titled Slaughter at Sea: Dolphins, Turtles and Sharks: Illegal Fishing on Taiwanese Longliners, featuring interviews with the migrant crew members in Indonesia last month.
They would spear or electrocute dolphins swimming alongside boats, as the animals’ blood attracts sharks, a crew member said in the film.
When they caught a turtle, they usually released it “unless the captain asked for turtle’s tail,” given its purported medicinal effects, a fisher said.
To evade inspections by Taiwanese officials, captains ordered the crew to hide shark fins at the bottom of freezers and cover them with other fish, the foundation said.
Many crew members also reported physical violence and debt bondage, it added.
“These illegal, unsustainable and brutally cruel activities are being enabled by the Taiwanese authorities’ failure to act,” foundation executive director Steve Trent said, urging Taiwan to end the abuses, and create legal, sustainable and ethical fisheries.
Photographs and footage provided by the foundation do not show any specific vessels, and the testimonies of the migrant crew are difficult to confirm, the Fisheries Agency said on Wednesday, but added that it would probe the matter.
Since the Act for Distant Water Fisheries (遠洋漁業條例) took effect last year, the agency has tightened regulation of the industry and issued fines, it said, calling on environmental groups to affirm that most Taiwanese fishers obey the law.
Management of Taiwan’s distant-sea fishing fleets is a thorny issue for the government, as heavy fines for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities have triggered a protest by fishers last month, the largest-ever so far.
Some consider the heavy punishments to be one of the factors that contributed to the Democratic Progressive Party’s losses in the Nov. 24 elections.
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
INTENSIFYING THREATS: Beijing’s tactics include massive attacks on the government service network, aircraft and naval vessel incursions and damaging undersea cables China is prepared to interfere in November’s nine-in-one local elections by launching massive attacks on the Taiwanese government’s service network (GSN), a report published by the National Security Bureau showed. The report was submitted to the Legislative Yuan ahead of the bureau’s scheduled briefing at the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The national security team has identified about 13,000 suspicious Internet accounts and 860,000 disputed messages, the bureau said of China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan. The disputed messages focus on major foreign affairs, national defense and economic issues, which were produced using generative artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed through Chinese
COUNTERING HOSTILITY: The draft bill would require the US to increase diplomatic pressure on China and would impose sanctions on those who sabotage undersea cable networks US lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill to bolster the resilience of Taiwan’s submarine cables to counter China’s hostile activities. The proposal, titled the critical undersea infrastructure resilience initiative act, was cosponsored by Republican representatives Mike Lawler and Greg Stanton, and Democratic Representative Dave Min. US Senators John Curtis and Jacky Rosen also introduced a companion bill in the US Senate, which has passed markup at the chamber’s Committee on Foreign Relations. The House’s version of the bill would prioritize the deployment of sensors to detect disruptions or potential sabotage in real-time and enhance early warning capabilities through global intelligence sharing frameworks,
RSS