Marine conservationists on Monday called for the establishment of a “ministry of ocean management” to protect fishery resources which they said are on the brink of depletion, ahead of World Ocean Day today.
A coalition of environmental groups called for a specific authority to manage fishing activities and marine conservation amid a series of pollution and poaching incidents.
Marine conservation organization Oceanus Honors Gaia chief executive Lin Ai-lung (林愛龍) said that because of the lack of leadership in marine affairs, the nation has seen an increase in environmental incidents and illegal fishing activities, including two oil spills caused by grounded ships off New Taipei City and Penghu County, a “yellow card” given by the EU over Taiwan’s failure to enforce fishing laws, as well as poaching of marine animals by Taiwanese and Chinese alike.
“Taiwan’s marine conservation is a headless system, because the conservation and management responsibility is distributed across 22 government units. For example, the Environmental Protection Administration does not have a vessel to deal with ocean pollution, while the Coast Guard Administration, which has specialized ships, is not responsible for handling pollution,” Lin said.
While coral and threatened marine species have been illegally harvested in great quantities, none of the government agencies have placed marine conservation at the center of their operations, so the establishment of a “ministry of ocean management” is necessary, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) said.
A ban on destructive fishing methods was also called for to curb overfishing.
Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation office manager Lai Wei-jen (賴威任) said an estimated 2,000 to 10,000 dolphins and whales die every year as a result of being caught in fishing gear and nets, while fish cannot be found at some healthy coral reefs due to overfishing.
Scientific studies have estimated that there will be no wild fish left by 2048 if global fishing trends continue at the current pace, Academia Sinica ichthyologist Shao Kwang-tsao (邵廣昭) said.
“Taiwan’s total fish catch has diminished from 1.35 million tonnes in 1990 to 1.1 million tonnes today. The difference may appear slight, but fishermen have to spend more effort to catch fish, while the government has to spend more to subsidize the fishing industry. Fish caught today are also smaller, and many are coarse fish that are not good for consumption and have little economic value,” Shao said.
“Ocean sunfish is internationally identified as a threatened species, but one can find them in seafood restaurants in Taiwan. That says much about the nation’s conservation,” Shao said.
Establishing a sustainable fishing industry and consumer culture is necessary in addition to a competent authority over marine management, he said.
The groups launched an online signature campaign calling for the establishment of a “ministry of ocean management,” and they have collected more than 2,000 signatures in a week, they said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching