Global environmental group Greenpeace has charged Taiwan's fishing industry with depleting sensitive species on the high seas, prompting a stiff rebuttal on Thursday from the government's Fisheries Agency, according to dpa. Taiwanese fishing boats are fewer but larger today, Greenpeace found in a study from 2002 though this year, and their owners are putting pressure on big eye tuna and albacore. Other marine life, such as sea turtles, are also getting stuck in their nets, the group said. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists big eye tuna and one type of albacore on its "Red List," which categorizes populations that need to be monitored. Greenpeace advocates strengthening enforcement of marine protection laws and cutting Taiwan's catches in half to ease over-fishing, oceans campaigner Kao Su-fen said on Wednesday night. "We know that the time these fish have is getting shorter, and then what will these fishing enterprises do?" Kao said. "We want them to be sustainable." Greenpeace calls the Taiwanese industry, aided by the government, the biggest in the Pacific Ocean, with 1,953 ships. The government Fisheries Agency has spent 11.6 billion Taiwanese dollars (400 million US dollars) on high seas fishing since 2002: 75 per cent of that on "fisheries capacity" and just 3 per cent on "resource management," the environmental group alleges. Environmentalists take further issue with Taiwan's 40-billion-per-year high sea fishery industry because the boats use a method that nets all forms of marine life, including many not meant for consumption, Kao said. The Fisheries Agency has spent billions of Taiwanese dollars since 2002 to cut fleets by recalling boats and enforcing laws on those still in business, it said in a statement. Taiwan's main catches of tuna and mackerel pike are hardly endangered, it added. "Our country's high sea fishery staples of tuna and mackerel pike belong to healthy resource categories," the statement says. "To expand capacity does not go against preservation."
