Dismantling 120 Taiwan Tuna Longliners Startedff

Taiwan Monday kicked off its largest-ever reduction of tuna fleet by dismantling two 100-tonnage longline tuna fishing vessels at southern fishing harbor of Chien Chen in Kaohsiung, with 73 such longliners to be scrapped by the end of this year and another 47 in 2006, according to officials with the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture (COA).

COA officials said the move came as a response to a United Nations’ call to protect the dwindling bigeye tuna stock in the world and conserve related resources.

At the moment, Taiwan has a total of 614 longliners for tuna fishing in the Pacific Ocean, Altantic Ocean and Indian Ocean, and 63 of them have returned to Taiwan to be dismantled.

The officials said that all the longliners to be scrapped have a minimum service span of over 10 years.

The government will spend US$4 billion (US$121.2 million) to compensate the losses of operators of the tuna fishing vessels this year and next after their longliners are dismantled, the COA Fisheries Administration said.

Although Taiwan is not a United Nations member, the country is resolute in complying with the International Plan of Action for the Management of Fishing Capacity passed in 1999 by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s Committee on Fisheries.

The plan calls for tuna-catching nations to reduce their catch by 20 to 30 percent to protect bigeye tuna whose stocks was falling due to over-catch, the officials said. “Taiwan wants to do its duty as a member of the global village, as well as to help secure sustainable fishery resources for all,” the officials added.

The scrapping of the boats will be mandatory and the vessels’ licenses will be repealed automatically, they said.

At the moment, Taiwan is one of the top tuna-catching nations in the world. The island has a total of 614 longliners and 34 purse seiners which catch a total of 576,000 metric tons of tuna, valued at around NT$30 billion per year.

From the annual catch, 200,000 metric tons are made into canned tuna and exported to the U.S. and Thailand, while 150,000 metric tons are exported to Japan to be sold as raw tuna, or sashimi