Environmental protection groups on Tuesday called on the Fisheries Agency to direct more resources to coastal life protection instead of spending most of its budget on distant-water fishing management to curry favor with the European Commission on illegal fishing issues.
Three groups petitioned the Cabinet on the eve of yesterday’s World Animal Day, demanding that the government pay more attention to marine life protection.
“The nation is developing offshore wind farms, but we have not seen a comprehensive plan from the government for the protection of marine ecology,” Matsu Fish Conservation Union chairman Chen Bing-heng (陳秉亨) said.
The population of Taiwanese humpback dolphins is rapidly shrinking, with fewer than 70 living in the waters surrounding Taiwan, Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association chairman Robin Winkler (文魯彬) said, adding that offshore wind farm development might lead to their extinction.
The dolphins are facing five threats: marine and air pollution; reduction of their habitats; noise; and fishing activities, he said.
Nearly half of the agency’s annual budget is directed to distant-water fishing management, as it is trying to have Taiwan removed from the EU’s “yellow card” warning list this year, Oceanus Honors Gaia Association chairman Lin Ai-lung (林愛龍) said.
After receiving the groups’ petition, Executive Yuan Department of Economics, Energy and Agriculture Director Liao Chi-tsung (廖繼宗) said the Bureau of Energy should require offshore wind farm developers to use construction methods that minimize noise.
The Forestry Bureau should disclose the habitats of the dolphins and the Fisheries Agency should update its statistics about fines for fishermen using drift nets, Liao told the groups.
The agency is paying equal attention to coastal and distant-water fishing management, but the latter is better-known, as it attracts the attention of the media, agency Deputy Director-General Huang Hung-yan (黃鴻燕) said.
The agency spends about NT$100 million (US$3.28 million) annually to stop fishermen from using drift nets and help them adopt other fishing methods, Fisheries Regulation Division section chief Shen Chen-chen (沈珍珍) said.
While drift nets are often used in waters with a rocky ocean bed, the agency leaves their regulation to local governments, she said, adding that New Taipei City and Keelung, as well as Pingtung, Taitung and Penghu counties have banned the use of drift nets within 3 nautical miles (5.6km) of the coast.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS