Taiwan, China's coastal and offshore catch reporting begins in July, a big step forward for the fishing industry

Taiwandeep-sea fishingcatch reporting and catch up with international practice. Coastal and offshore fishing is set to change along with it. The Council of Agriculture's Fisheries Agency has planned that next month (July), small boats of 10 tonnes and above entering the 24 fishing ports designated by the Fisheries Agency will also have to be weighed and fill out a fish landing declaration form, to be submitted to the fishermen's association for review. If the policy can be implemented, it will help sustain marine resources and wash away our country's reputation for overfishing.

Several fishermen's associations said that the policy is still in its promotion stage and they expect fishermen to push back initially, but based on how the mackerel and horse mackerel fishery and flying fish roe fishing boats were the first to implement reporting, after a period of adjustment, fishermen will gradually accept it. However, some fishermen's associations worry that, in cooperating with consignment sellers, fishermen may engage in off-market transactions, or evade or underreport their catches.

In 2017, all fishing ports in Taiwan will need to fill out fish landing declaration forms

Last year the Fisheries Agency announced the Fish Landing Declaration Reporting Management Regulations. Across Taiwan's more than 200 fishing ports, catch reporting will be implemented in stages. The first stage covers 24 fishing ports in total, including Yilan's Nanfang'ao Fishing Port, Keelung's Badouzi Fishing Port, Zhengbin Fishing Port, Taichung's Wuqi Fishing Port, Kaohsiung's Qianzhen Fishing Port, and Pingtung's Donggang Yanpu Fishing Port, among others. When coastal and offshore fishing boats of 10 tonnes and above enter these fishing ports, fishermen must complete catch weighing, fill out fish landing declaration forms, and hand them to the local district fishermen's association. The district fishermen's association must submit the previous month's fish landing declaration forms to the Fisheries Agency by the 5th of the following month.

From January 1 next year, it will be fully implemented, and all fishing boats of 10 tonnes and above entering any port will have to fill out fish landing declaration forms.

Taiwan's offshore fishery has long lacked a "bookkeeping habit"

In the past, some fishing ports did not even have weighbridges, so when fishing boats from other counties or cities entered the port to unload fish, the port could not actually calculate the catch. After the Fisheries Agency gradually opened up subsidies in recent years, for example at Keelung's Zhengbin and Badouzi fishing ports, where weighbridges were installed at the end of the year before last, the annual catch surged from 300 tonnes to more than 52,000 tonnes, an increase of fully 173 times.

With only one week left before the policy takes effect, most district fishermen's associations said they still need to communicate more with fishermen. Initially there will certainly be a backlash from fishermen, who will find it troublesome, and it will take a period of persuasion, or even government intervention using public authority, through fines, to eliminate the problem of false catch reporting.

Fisheries Agency adds manpower; how to report low-value trash fish still to be discussed

In response to the manpower issues raised by local fishermen's associations, Shi Junyi, head of the Fisheries Policy Division of the Council of Agriculture's Fisheries Agency, said that when the policy first takes effect, the Fisheries Agency will assign 1 to 2 inspectors to the 24 ports according to port grade, to assist fishermen's association staff in guiding fishermen to fill out declaration forms, and will also send people to fishing ports for inspections from time to time.

Shi Junyi said that what they are more worried about at present is fishing ports without auction markets, which originally had little manpower allocation. Meetings will be held in the next few days to discuss how manpower can be used or how declaration forms can be further simplified. As for the possible situations of off-market transactions and avoidance of reporting, a review will be conducted after the new policy has been in effect for some time.

In addition, some fishermen have reported that part of the catch of bottom trawlers is low-value trash fish, with very complex species. Whether such catch should be reported and how to report it - Shi Junyi said that clearly identified species definitely must be reported, but because trash fish are many in kind and small in body, the agricultural authorities are still considering it, and in the short term will invite local fishermen's associations to discuss it together.

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[Citizen writer] If the fishing industry does not keep accounts, marine resources will go bankrupt! On the importance of catch reporting