Greenpeace activists yesterday held a peaceful protest at Taiwan’s Fisheries Agency (FA), calling for efficient monitoring of Taiwanese-owned vessels and tighter regulations on illegal fishing internationally. Displaying a banner reading “Too much talk, too little action†accompanied by the flags of Panama and Vanuatu, the activists condemned the FA for failing to investigate the suspected illegal tuna carrier MV Lung Yuin, which is in apparent breach of a registration requirement.
The FA had claimed that the Lung Yuin was Panama-flagged, although it clearly flew the Vanuatu flag as it left Kashiung port on Monday, after Greenpeace activists delayed its departure by chaining themselves to the ship’s anchor. In response to Greenpeace demands to investigate the vessel, the FA responded that fish carriers such as Lung Yuin are not required to comply with its national requirements to register flag of convenience operations. This is a direct contradiction with the text of Taiwan’s maritime regulations as well as international interpretations of vessels undertaking “fishing activities,†which includes fish carriers. Article 3.3 of The Regulations on the Approval of Investment in the Operation of Foreign Flag Fishing Vessels defines the activities subject to the registration requirement as: “engagement in the business of fishing by fishing vessels, trading, transporting and import and export of fishery products.â€
“In the five days since Greenpeace alerted the Fisheries Agency to the Lung Yuin’s failure to comply with Taiwan’s legislation, the authorities have taken no action, and have instead responded with confused and uninformed rebuttalsâ€, said Kao Yu Fen, Greenpeace East Asia oceans campaigner. “The FA needs to shape up quickly on suspected and illegal fishery operations, but if they won’t even act on an apparently illegal vessel in port, what hope do our oceans and tuna have in the Pacific Ocean, where there is little monitoring and surveillance?â€
Fish carrier vessels like the Lung Yuin, which is due to collect tuna from the Pacific Ocean for market shelves in Japan, Taiwan and the US, facilitate the laundering of illegally caught tuna by transferring tuna from fishing vessels out at sea, far away from any monitoring by authorities. Scientists have warned that Pacific bigeye and yellowfin tuna stocks are already in sharp decline because of both legal and illegal overfishing. Long-line fishing, widely used to catch Pacific tuna, is poorly regulated and pirate fishing is thought to be commonplace among long-line fleets.
The global extent of IUU fishing was reported by MRAG and University of British Columbia in 2008. It was estimated that the amount of IUU fishing in the Pacific region is between 21-46% of all fishing activities, the majority of which would be conducted by the long-liners.
According to Greenpeace “This week’s events clearly show that Taiwan simply has too many fishing and carrier vessels operating to properly control them. If Taiwan is to ensure tuna and healthy oceans for the future, it must champion strong international conservation measures such as the closure of Pacific high pockets(4), a ban on at sea transshipments, fishing capacity reductions in order to close the legal loopholes exploited by its fishing fleets.â€
