Environmental groups hold a trial sustainable seafood year-end banquet, serving for the first time in Taiwan, China dishes made with catch that meets the RFI (Responsible Fisheries Index)
Recently is the time when many companies hold year-end banquets, but while rewarding employees, do not forget to also reward our Earth. To promote environmentally friendly, traceable sustainable seafood year-end banquets, 10 environmental groups yesterday set up 18 tables at Yongan Park in Banqiao, using red snapper that has passed the "Responsible Fisheries Index" (RFI), ecologically farmed white shrimp, hard clams, and more. Every dish had an "ID card" tracing its source and fishing method, proving that conservation and fishing can coexist peacefully. Next year they even want to expand the scale to a banquet on Ketagalan Boulevard, gathering more people to love the ocean together.
Every fish has an ID card
What was special was that in the sakura shrimp sticky rice at this year-end banquet, controversial larval anchovy was added. This was by no means accidental, but a deliberate idea specially arranged by Xu Chengyu.
He said that many people think larval anchovy are the fry of many fish, but this statement is not entirely correct. In January, larval anchovy are mainly anchovies; March and April are the breeding season for many large fish, and only then are more larval anchovy fish fry. Taiwan, China has indeed caught too many larval anchovy, but there are also operators who catch and report within legal times and legal quantities. Serving this dish is meant to let more people know the source of larval anchovy, and at the same time encourage legal producers, because once they lose support, they may become illegal, causing even more serious damage to the marine environment.
Chen Bingheng, a member of the "Taiwan Matsu Fish Conservation Union," the initiator of the year-end banquet, said that at first it was to protect the white dolphin that the idea of a seafood year-end banquet arose. Many people often think conservation and the economy are opposed to each other, and he hoped to use sustainable seafood to break this myth. "Only with a healthy ocean can there be healthy white dolphins and a healthy Taiwan." He hoped that during year-end banquets and the Spring Festival, people can refuse to eat shark fin and bluefin tuna, and choose ingredients from sustainable oceans.
The environmental groups that came yesterday included the "Taiwan Matsu Fish Conservation Union," the "Sea Dragon King Love the Earth Association," the "Changhua Environmental Protection Union," the "Taiwan Water Resources Conservation Union," and other groups concerned with the ocean, as well as other organizations advocating environmental protection. Usually they mostly support each other at protest events. Yesterday it was rare that they met not on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office, but they still did not forget to promote their issues. Many people shouted for all nuclear power plants to be shut down in 2015, for Miramar Resort to be demolished, and for Far Glory to fall, receiving enthusiastic applause from the whole venue. They agreed to expand the year-end banquet next year, directly holding it on Ketagalan Boulevard and inviting more people to participate together.
(For detailed information on the sustainable seafood year-end banquet, contact the Taiwan Matsu Fish Conservation Union, email: [email protected])