Ship-borne activists said yesterday they had targeted fishing boats from South Korea, Taiwan and the US in high-seas protests against the “plundering” of tuna in the Pacific.
In the latest confrontation, crew from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza boarded a Taiwanese boat, the Nian Sheng 3, to inspect the catch and then escorted the boat out of international waters, a spokesman said.
The captain of the tuna boat, which also contained hundreds of frozen shark fins and tails, allowed the activists to board, Greenpeace campaign leader Lagi Toribau said by telephone from the Esperanza.
PHOTO: AFP
“Greenpeace are not a violent campaigning organization,” he said, while adding that the activists were prepared to “interfere with their physical fishing activities in order for us to save the last tuna stocks.”
On Sunday, Esperanza crew members set out to a small boat to paint the side of a US vessel, Cape Finisterre, with the words “Tuna Overkill” and asked it to leave international waters, Greenpeace said in a statement.
Last Thursday the group protested alongside the South Korean ship Olympus before activists “confiscated a fish aggregation device” used to attract tuna.
The latest action took place in international waters near the Solomon Islands where “legal fishers and pirates are both plundering Pacific tuna,” Greenpeace said.
Describing tuna as the world’s favorite fish, Toribau said “advances in technology mean large ships are now able to catch as much fish in two days as the fishers of the small Pacific island countries can catch in a year.”
The future of the comparatively healthy western and central Pacific tuna fishery is crucial for small Pacific states. Tuna is the only major economic resource for many, as well as one of the most important food sources.
Currently license fees provide Pacific states a small return of around 5 percent to 6 percent of the US$3 billion annual catch in the region.
Toribau said the fishing carried out by the ships “is technically not illegal but is unregulated,” and Greenpeace was campaigning for the pockets of international waters between the island nations to be declared marine reserves.
The Esperanza was heading for a stopover in the Solomon Islands before returning to international waters to continue the protests, Toribau said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
A Taiwanese academic yesterday said that Chinese Ambassador to Denmark Wang Xuefeng (王雪峰) disrespected Denmark and Japan when he earlier this year allegedly asked Japan’s embassy to make Taiwan’s representatives leave an event in Copenhagen. The Danish-language Berlingske on Sunday reported the incident in an article with the headline “The emperor’s birthday ended in drama in Copenhagen: More conflict may be on the way between Denmark and China.” It said that on Feb. 26, the Japanese embassy in Denmark held an event for Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s birthday, with about 200 guests in attendance, including representatives from Taiwan. After addressing the Japanese hosts, Wang
RSS