The Palais de Chine Hotel yesterday said it canceled an all-you-can-eat banquet with endangered sea urchin on the menu as marine conservationists prepared to protest the event.
Conservationists from Penghu County and members of the Trees Party had planned to protest in front of the hotel in Taipei against the banquet to mark the anniversary of the hotel’s founding, in which the guests would be offered unlimited servings of sea urchins from around Penghu.
The campaigners decided to protest the hotel because it offered an over-harvested sea urchin species, Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus, which was rarely found in Penghu this year, Trees Party member and Penghu resident Sheng Yi-che (冼義哲) said.
The hotel said the event would involve only urchins that were larger than 8cm and those collected during the harvest season in accordance with Penghu’s sea urchin harvest laws.
The hotel said it also consulted marine experts to ensure that the event would not harm the environment.
However, the hotel said it decided to heed the campaigners’ advice and stopped offering Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus to protect the environment.
“Although the hotel did not think about the environmental impact the event would have, we approve of the hotel’s decision to cancel the event. We hope the case sets an example for other hotels and restaurants,” Sheng said.
In May, conservationists in Penghu found the local sea urchin population was on the verge of collapse, just ahead of the start of the sea urchin harvest season.
An online campaign urging the public to refuse to eat or purchase sea urchins was launched after the discovery, but the hotel’s all-you-can-eat event came as a shock to conservationists, Sheng said.
“The sea urchin population is on the brink of collapse, but the hotel still wanted to offer an unlimited supply of it. Although the hotel said it was organizing the event in accordance with the urchin harvest law, it did not consider how its sale could impact marine ecology,” Penghu Youth Front director Hung Kuo-chen (洪國珍) said.
All-you-can-eat banquets are unhealthy and waste food, Hung said.
As sea urchin farming is too expensive to be viable, harvesting wild sea urchins is the only way to supply the market, but that can easily lead to overharvesting and depletion of marine resources, Association of Taiwan Tree-huggers director Su Po-hao (蘇柏豪) said.
“Fishermen and consumers have turned to the purple sea urchin because the number of Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus has decreased dramatically and conservationists are worried that it might cause the population of the purple sea urchin to drop,” Su said.
Taiwan should emulate Japan, where urchin harvests are strictly regulated to ensure a stable supply of sea urchins, he said.
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