The long and bumpy journey: Taiwan׳s aquaculture development and management

This paper presents an overview of Taiwan׳s aquaculture development and management, focusing on the transition of the industry and the current management measures that particularly address environmental effects, ecolabels and diversification into tourism and ornamental fish business. Since the late 1980s when Taiwan׳s aquaculture in its heyday was pounded by emergent environmental problems, a policy was established on enhancing governance over aquaculture, in seeking to transform it towards an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable industry. The paper shows that positive outcomes have been achieved after the policy measures have been implemented over the past two decades. However, potential challenges of ongoing environmental impacts, conflicts regarding multiple sea uses, concerns on seafood safety, lack of management of “black” farms, low market penetration of ecolabeled products and lack of participative management were identified. It argues for the need to encourage ICZM programs to solve sea use conflicts and minimize environmental impacts, reduce “black farms” to fill the management gap, enhance market shares of ecolabeled products and a transition to a more participative mode of governance.     

Masterstroke or paper tiger – The reform of the EU׳s Common Fisheries Policy

The European fisheries policy has undergone a substantial reform. The reform process was initiated by a Green Paper published by the European Commission in 2009. It was recently finalised with an agreement on a new Basic Regulation between the European Commission, the Council and the Parliament in October 2013. The reform of the Common Fisheries Policy will be an important step towards a more sustainable fisheries policy in Europe. The most important reform steps are the introduction of maximum sustainable yield as the new management target, a landing obligation for bycatch and a governance shift towards regions. Although the mentioned reform elements are in generally very promising, their concrete design does not always meet existing expectations.     

Japan׳s whaling following the International Court of Justice ruling: Brave New World – Or business as usual?

Since 1987, Japan has conducted extensive special permit whaling (“scientific whaling”) in the Antarctic and North Pacific. This has been viewed by many as a way to circumvent the International Whaling Commission׳s (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling, which was implemented in 1985. Recently, Australia took Japan to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over this issue. Using various criteria, the Court ruled that Japan׳s whaling was not “for purposes of scientific research” as required by Article VIII of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, and ordered Japan to immediately cease its JARPA II whaling program in the Antarctic. Despite optimism that the Court׳s ruling might spell the end of Japanese whaling in the Antarctic and even elsewhere, Japan has indicated that it will redesign its whaling programs and continue operations. Based upon Japan׳s history at the IWC, I argue here that this was an expected outcome; I predict the course of events over the next months, and suggest that the ICJ ruling, while satisfying as an independent vindication of Japan׳s critics, represents little more than a temporary setback for that nation׳s whaling enterprise.     

Repair and revitalisation of Australia׳s tropical estuaries and coastal wetlands: Opportunities and constraints for the reinstatement of lost function and productivity

Tropical fisheries are in decline around world as a result of diverse anthropogenic threats. These threats are intimately linked to biodiversity and conservation values because of the heavy dependence of both fisheries and high value marine and coastal wetlands on coastal ecosystem health. Consequently, if the widespread degradation of coastal ecosystems can be halted and remediated, there are substantial benefits to fisheries output, ecosystem resilience, food security, livelihoods, recreation and the protection of ecological assets of national and global significance. The extent, intactness and quality of Australia׳s tropical coastal ecosystems has declined markedly since European settlement, due to the cumulative impact of many small encroachments and local barrier construction on the extent and productivity of coastal wetlands, mangroves and seagrass meadows. Additionally, coastal ecosystem dependent biota has been excluded from large areas of critical habitats. Despite these changes, coastal fisheries show no clear declines that could not be explained by changes in effort. This lack of detectable decline is probably partly attributable to the short history of available fisheries catch data. However, it is also likely that it reflects the offsetting of lost natural productivity by greatly increased anthropogenic nutrient loads; a substantial problem as governments are committed to large scale, long term efforts to reduce discharges of nutrients to coastal waters. This possibility underlines the importance of rejuvenating lost coastal productivity. Evaluation of past remediation efforts show that documented success is rare, due to a complex of factors including ineffective prioritisation, a lack of necessary knowledge and resources, and inefficient monitoring and evaluation. Past experiences from Australia׳s tropics and around the world, together with current ecological understanding, suggests some generally desirable characteristics to enhance the likelihood of successful remediation and repair actions.     

‘It׳s part of me’; understanding the values,images and principles of coastal users and their influence on the social acceptability of MPAs

Improving the social acceptability or ‘social licence’ of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is a key challenge facing countries all around the world. As the world moves slowly towards the establishment of a global network of MPAs, it is increasingly apparent that a greater understanding of social responses to MPAs is required, given they are often met with resistance from local communities. A series of in-depth, semi structured interviews were conducted across coastal users in New South Wales, Australia, including surfers, recreational fishers, professional fishers, spearfishers, walkers, divers, snorkellers, kayakers and other community members. The research identified the values, images and principles at work amongst coastal users to determine the dominant ‘cultural models’ within the community and how these models influenced attitudes towards MPAs. This research indicates that traditional consultation models may not be sufficient to address the full spectrum of community needs, and in fact suggests the need to re-conceive the make -up of ‘the community’ itself. In the context of MPA planning ‘the community’ is not an amalgamation of a range of homogenous stakeholder groups but instead a diverse and complex mix of identities and value systems which are not confined to particular interest groups. Incorporating consideration of the diverse range of values, images and principles found within and across stakeholder groups will require new and innovative approaches to participation and management.