The Fisheries Agency is in a bit of a bouillabaisse after Greenpeace announced on Thursday that it had uncovered a pirate fishing operation in waters near Papua New Guinea that included a Taiwanese vessel carrying 75kg of shark fins and a tuna catch logbook that would, if accurate, indicate the fishermen were very unlucky.
The agency’s complaints that Greenpeace violated international law by boarding the Shuen De Ching No. 888 without the government’s permission and its claim that the boat had authorization from the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) to fish in the area — despite the agency and the WCPFC both “forgetting” to register the vessel on the commission’s Web site — smack of the indignant defense of a child who was caught with one hand in the cookie jar.
The agency yesterday said that it had relayed the ship’s details to the WCPFC Record of Fishing Vessels on May 22 and received acknowledgment the same day, which WCPFC Secretariat confirmed in a message yesterday.
Leaving aside the fuss over paperwork and boarding permission — Greenpeace said the ship’s captain invited the group aboard — the crucial issue should be what was discovered onboard the ship and what was not: logbooks recording a tuna catch of just 3 tonnes as well as three sharks, but 75kg of shark fins (at least 42 sharks’ worth, according to Greenpeace).
If the books are accurate, one has to ask what the Shuen De Ching’s crew had been doing since they left Taiwan on June 27 and arrived in the waters near Papua New Guinea about two months ago.
According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, distant-water longline vessels like the Shuen De Ching utilize a main line that can be more than 100km long, with as many as 3,000 lines branching from it — each one with a hook — and can catch 2 tonnes of fish per day on average.
Greenpeace campaigner Lagi Toribau told the Guardian Australia that the paucity of fish on the boat could be because of longline vessels unloading catches on “motherships” at sea.
It cannot be a coincidence that the Greenpeace “sting” came as the leaders of the Pacific Island Forum were meeting in Port Moresby, with a 10-year plan for sustainable fishing on their agenda, or one week after WCPFC officials finished their annual meeting in Japan without reaching a consensus on new conservation measures for Pacific bluefin tuna, even though the population of the fish has fallen 96 percent compared to levels prior to fishing.
The Fisheries Agency said it would investigate Greenpeace’s accusations that the Shuen De Ching was involved in shark finning and illegal transshipment and said it would sanction the boat if the allegations were proved true.
Republic of China laws stipulate that the weight of fins cannot exceed 5 percent of the weight of the total shark catch and the Council of Agriculture in 2012 banned Taiwanese fishing boats from unloading shark fins that are not attached to shark bodies.
The impact of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, largely by longline boats, is having a devastating effect on the already-threatened Pacific bluefin tuna and shark populations, as well as threatening the survival of Pacific Island communities that depend on tuna. It should not be tolerated.
The world is watching to see what action the Fisheries Agency will take in this case.
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