Banning Gillnets Brings Life Back to Turtle Island

[This article continues from the previous piece: The turtle leaves, will it return, Samaji]

The turning point began with the ban on gillnets

Sea turtles coming ashore bring tourism, creating many related industries. These days the people of Little Liuqiu are very busy, each person juggling several jobs. Former township head Cai Tianyu says the island now has more than 300 homestays, and with fried dough twists having made a name for themselves, women who used to take odd jobs clean homestays in the morning, sell fried dough twists in the afternoon, and help out at restaurants in the evening, easily earning 40,000 yuan a month. Other industries created by tourism include intertidal zone guided tours, snorkeling and diving, and scooter rentals; last year a duty-free shop was even set up at the Baisha Port Visitor Center. Little Liuqiu's industrial structure has shifted from a past in which 50% of the population worked in fishing to a present in which 70% live off tourism.

This transformation was by no means accidental, nor was it achieved overnight. The policy banning gillnets in the 3-nautical-mile sea area, first promoted spontaneously by Little Liuqiu starting in 2013 and later promulgated by the Pingtung County Government, can be called a major key. This step first made it impossible to carry any gillnet gear out of port, reducing the difficulties coast guard personnel faced in judging and enforcing the law at sea *

*Currently Keelung City, New Taipei City, Tainan City, Pingtung County, Taitung County and Penghu County all have public notices restricting the use of gillnets, but most are merely formal notices and are not actually enforced, precisely because the burden of proof for cracking down on illegal fishing at sea is extremely difficult.