The nation’s first university student volunteer to serve on a Greenpeace vessel — the Esperanza — shared her experiences as a defender of the marine environment in Taipei yesterday.
Amy Lan (藍之青), a 22-year old student from National Chengchi University’s department of diplomacy, became a crewmember on a mission to protect the Pacific and promote the establishment of ocean reserves in Western and Central Pacific Fisheries.
Being the youngest member of the crew and the one with the least ocean-going experience, Lan said she was quite nervous when the journey started, but after a few days of experiencing seasickness, she was able to carry out her responsibilities of communicating with Taiwanese captains of tuna fishing vessels by radio, observing changes in the ocean and assisting other crewmembers.
During the eight-week mission, Lan encountered about 10 fishing vessels, four of which were Taiwanese, which she boarded to conduct interviews and better understand fishing conditions. She also saw first-hand how longline fishing is done.
“We were fortunate to be allowed to stay on a fishing vessel for four hours to observe how they fished, but the fishermen told me that they doubted they would catch any tuna on that day because they caught only two the previous day and four the day before that,” Lan said, adding that many told her that tuna catches continued to decrease.
An unforgettable episode from her journey was when the group saved a swordfish caught in the ropes of a tuna longline and watched as it swam away. The experience led her to think about the many fish killed as byproducts of tuna fishing.
Lan said she was surprised to see the hard lives of the fishermen, working on a small fishing boats in cramped conditions for seven to eight months at a time without docking and only making meager catches.
She said the experience made her more aware of marine conservation and she is now looking forward to studying environmental policy.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS