A migratory duck rarely seen in Taiwan drowned off New Taipei City on Saturday after becoming entangled in an abandoned fishing net. The death of the red-breasted merganser — one of five spotted this year off the city’s coast — prompted renewed concerns about marine waste in Taiwan’s waters.
Discarded fishing nets, fishing lines, plastic and other waste are dangerous to aquatic birds, whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other marine animals, said Huang Shu-ting (黃蜀婷), president of a bird-watching club.
“Today it is a red-breasted merganser, but tomorrow it could be a dolphin, turtle or other birds,” she said.
Fishing and aquaculture industries are major sources of the plastic waste that gets into the ocean, as fishers often lose or discard old nets and fishing lines. That waste often washes ashore, or marine life becomes entangled in it. Waste from single-use plastic consumer products also gets into the ocean after being improperly discarded or blown away from landfills.
The Ministry of Environment works with environmental organizations and coastal management authorities to lead beach cleanups and monitor waste along the coast. Cleanups are also organized by volunteer initiatives such as Taiwan National Clean Up Day, which has run annually since 2017. Such programs are good, but as they are infrequent, they cannot keep pace with the rapid accumulation of waste. The Ocean Cleanup Web site says that about 80 percent of plastic marine waste ends up ashore within a month of washing out to sea.
Banning production of plastic would eliminate plastic waste, but it is simply not feasible to live without any form of plastic in the modern world. At best, governments could mandate the use of alternatives such as bamboo or metal where possible, or plastics that are recyclable or biodegradable. It could also subsidize research into alternatives to commonly used plastics. Those changes would take time, and in the meantime plastics continue to be a threat to marine life. Plastic waste also affects human health when microplastics enter the food chain. That is a major concern, especially given Taiwan’s low birthrate, as microplastics can disrupt the reproductive system by reducing sperm count and motility, impairing ovulation, and causing placental dysfunction.
One solution to keep pace with the accumulation of marine waste is to deploy ocean-cleaning robots. Taiwanese ocean-cleanup initiative Azure Alliance proved the potential for such a solution when it tested its cleanup vessel the Azure Fighter in 2019. The remote-controlled vessel, which is in its third iteration, can collect more than 52 tonnes of waste in a year. The Azure Fighter could be modified to operate on its own using artificial intelligence (AI), which has been demonstrated by Hong Kong-based company Open Ocean Engineering with its AI-powered robot Clearbot. The study “Type and quantity of coastal debris pollution in Taiwan: A 12-year nationwide assessment using citizen science data,” published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin in October 2018, estimated that between October 2004 and December 2016, 500 tonnes to 1,000 tonnes of waste gathered on Taiwan’s coastline.
The government could help subsidize the mass production of ocean cleanup vessels and contract a Taiwanese manufacturer to develop the AI software. Even if only a few dozen robots were operating at any given time, it could greatly bolster the efforts of human volunteers, and the Ministry of Environment could even establish a division to monitor and clean beaches. A three-pronged strategy of reducing nonbiodegradable plastic production, recovering plastic waste and ramping up recycling of plastics could position Taiwan to be a regional leader on tackling marine waste. Such crucial efforts could save marine life and improve human health.
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump continued to shake the foundations of the liberal international order to realize his “America first” policy. However, amid an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability, the Trump administration brought some clarity to its policy toward Taiwan. As expected, bilateral trade emerged as a major priority for the new Trump administration. To secure a favorable trade deal with Taiwan, it adopted a two-pronged strategy: First, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” chip business from the US, indicating that if Taipei did not address Washington’s concerns in this strategic sector, it could revisit its Taiwan
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) challenges and ignores the international rules-based order by violating Taiwanese airspace using a high-flying drone: This incident is a multi-layered challenge, including a lawfare challenge against the First Island Chain, the US, and the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defines lawfare as “controlling the enemy through the law or using the law to constrain the enemy.” Chen Yu-cheng (陳育正), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, at Taiwan’s Fu Hsing Kang College (National Defense University), argues the PLA uses lawfare to create a precedent and a new de facto legal
Chile has elected a new government that has the opportunity to take a fresh look at some key aspects of foreign economic policy, mainly a greater focus on Asia, including Taiwan. Still, in the great scheme of things, Chile is a small nation in Latin America, compared with giants such as Brazil and Mexico, or other major markets such as Colombia and Argentina. So why should Taiwan pay much attention to the new administration? Because the victory of Chilean president-elect Jose Antonio Kast, a right-of-center politician, can be seen as confirming that the continent is undergoing one of its periodic political shifts,
Taiwan’s long-term care system has fallen into a structural paradox. Staffing shortages have led to a situation in which almost 20 percent of the about 110,000 beds in the care system are vacant, but new patient admissions remain closed. Although the government’s “Long-term Care 3.0” program has increased subsidies and sought to integrate medical and elderly care systems, strict staff-to-patient ratios, a narrow labor pipeline and rising inflation-driven costs have left many small to medium-sized care centers struggling. With nearly 20,000 beds forced to remain empty as a consequence, the issue is not isolated management failures, but a far more
RSS