Lin Ai-lung/What should the Fisheries Department do to promote the sustainable seafood label? Creating Taiwan Sustainable Seafood Mark Series 02

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(Ailong Lin / tr. by Phil Newell) CEO of the Sea Dragon King Love Earth Association and PhD candidate at Pennsylvania State University.

People often ask: why not coach Taiwanese fishing boats and apply for foreign marks directly? Why promote sustainable seafood labeling standards in Taiwan?

Reality: international certification is very expensive, and it is almost impossible to apply for it in Taiwan.

The cruel fact is that Taiwan's fishing industry is in poor condition. At present, probably no fishery can pass the MSC certification. In 2011, AFD spent money on an attempt to apply for a MSC certification mark for Taiwan's saury fishery, but failed because there was no management organization for saury resources in the North Pacific at that time.

In 2015, the Xingang Fisheries Association in Taitung District commissioned the Republic of China Association for Foreign Fisheries Cooperation and Development to use MSC certification standards to help pre-evaluate the "surface longline operation" fishing industry in the waters near the Xingang fishing port. The assessment team concluded: "at present, the ghost knife fishery in Xingang, Taiwan may not have reached the MSC standard for sustainable fisheries and cannot be certified."

The main problem is that there are no catch control measures, that is, when there is a risk of decline in the stock, there is no requirement to reduce the catch (such as total allowable catch). The second problems include the lack of detailed information on mixed species, lack of understanding of the state of the ecosystem, and so on. Therefore, an "improvement plan" is needed to help the fishery meet the requirements of sustainable fisheries.

In addition, some postgraduate papers in Taiwan use the pre-evaluation criteria of the MSC mark to evaluate and calculate the fish (kissing larvae) that Taiwan thinks it has managed well. as a result, the "resource status" is less than 60 points. However, MSC requires each index to reach more than 60 points, and the average score is more than 80 points in order to obtain the MSC mark. Therefore, kissing fish fishery can not obtain MSC certification at present, and there is still considerable room for improvement in fishery management and resource utilization. On the other hand, Donggang Cherry Blossom Shrimp, which is also evaluated with MSC in another paper, also has the dilemma that it cannot reach the standard.

Finally, the MSC verification fee is very expensive for many small fishermen! (well, it's a bit like the bottleneck of organic agriculture.) through online search, we can find that MSC fees vary depending on the size of the assessment, but one takeoff is about NT $2.5 million. There are also annual fees, store label fees, etc. Whispered, I don't know if the fish can be sold so expensive. How many housewives, cooks and company staff restaurants in Taiwan will be willing to pay the bill?

Taiwan is no longer a poor developing country, and no international organization will sponsor us (will only give us a yellow card). So it's better to develop your own marine sustainable badge.

So how did other countries begin this arduous journey?

The mode of Australian government intervention to assist in fishery certification

According to online data, in 2012, in order to help 50 large and small fisheries off the coast of Western Australia to obtain MSC certification, including shrimp trawls, crabs, pearls, shellfish, etc., the Western Australian government budgeted A $14.5 million for ── of about NT $320 million, which is planned to take four years. Its projects are subdivided into:

1. Verification fee of 6.5 million Australian dollars

It is about NT $140 million, and the average fishery has to pay NT $2.86 million in verification fees. The verification fee of A $6.5 million includes the payment of the initial review fee, the main review fee and the first annual fee after passing the review of MSC. After that, the annual fee will be borne by the fishing industry.

(2) A $2 million (about NT $44 million) for scientific research for four consecutive years to help pass the MSC review.

In addition, the Fisheries Department of the Western Australian Government has hired more than a dozen additional staff to handle MSC certification, including assistance in providing MSC with official data such as "status of resources, catch data, miscatch data, impact on ecosystem, fisheries management system" and so on.

This is based on the concept of "eating low-and medium-grade fish" promoted by conservation groups and the Academia Sinica. With this standard, fisheries that apply for verification in the future, such as mackerel, ghost knives, lock pipes, seaweed, and so on, can be scored by scientific research. The great white shark won't get the same score as the lock tube, will it?

It is suggested that the Fisheries Department should use the "Marine Fisheries Foundation" as the "verification body" to promote the follow-up work.

We estimate that if the AFD is positive, it will take one year to complete a total of 20 questions, each with a score of 5 marks.

After the announcement of the certification standards of the Fisheries Department, the newly established Taiwan Marine Conservation and Sustainable Fisheries Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the Marine Fisheries Foundation) can act as a "verification body" to carry out project assessment, counselling and marketing supervision.

Of course, the Marine Fisheries Foundation must first complete the second "recognition procedure" recommended by the FAO guidelines through the approval of Taiwan's "National Accreditation Foundation for Corporate corporations." After it is recognized and becomes a "verification organization," the Marine Fisheries Foundation can follow the example of MSC and form an "evaluation team" for each project that applies for verification.

In the future, countries (such as the Council of Agriculture, the Fisheries Department, the Ministry of Science and Technology, IOC, etc.) can work together for several fisheries that have the potential to achieve the "progressive or sustainable" logo. These include making annual budgets for marine scientific research, investigating the state of ecology and resources, setting up fisheries management teams, improving laws and regulations such as announcing the fishing ban, providing guidance to fishing vessels to install AIS (and the "i-Fishers Fisheries Intelligent Management Integrated system" proposed by the Sea Dragon King Association), implementing fish unloading declaration, monitoring illegal fishing, and so on.

More importantly, the "production and marketing inspection" of the sustainable ecological logo (avoiding the black sheep who violate the rules, and the Xiao Xiao that falsely uses the logo) and the "promotion system" must be established synchronously in order to establish the reputation and value of the logo in the long run.

Of course, fishermen still have to bear part of the verification fee and annual fee to raise funds to upgrade the industry. after all, Taiwan is not a rich father like the Japan Fisheries Agency or the Western Australian government. But it would be better if we could get the annual 2 billion green measures for marine fisheries supported by President Xiao Ying.

In the promotion system, it is suggested that the Marine Fisheries Foundation should be taken as the core, and the strategy should be combined with private large and small enterprises and consumer alliances to establish a media platform and promotion window for certified seafood production and marketing. We believe that there is a lot of room for growth in the domestic market for environmentally friendly fresh food. Organic stores with turnover of NT $1 billion can now purchase very few options for local environmentally friendly seafood. On the other hand, the fresh departments of Quan Lian, Carrefour and Tai Yun Fat, many online malls, and even many small restaurants with ideas that have asked the Sea Dragon King Association where to stock sustainable seafood, we believe that they are an important driving force in supporting marine conservation and sustainable fishing.

Lin Ailong / when the world is promoting sustainable seafood, Taiwan countries must enter │ to create Taiwan sustainable seafood stamp 01

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