A disease spreading quickly through coral reefs near Taiwan’s outlying islands poses a serious threat to the nation’s marine environment, experts and environmentalists said yesterday.
The International Year of the Reef last year called on people from 157 countries in the world to sign an online petition pledging to protect coral reefs. Each person who signed the petition pledged to behave in an environmentally responsible way — such as by using products that would not pollute the sea and eating only seafood that is caught in a sustainable manner.
Taiwan ranked fourth in the number of people who have taken the pledge, after the US, Malaysia and China.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
“If calculated in proportion to the total population and surface area covered by coral reefs, Taiwan would actually be the champion,” said Allen Chen (陳昭倫), assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Biodiversity Research Center. “This shows that Taiwanese care a lot about the preservation of coral reefs.”
Chen was one of the leaders of last year’s reef check project. Funded by Academia Sinica and other preservation organizations, 2008 Reef Check in Taiwan gathered volunteers from local Aboriginal tribes and diving groups to check the condition of coral reefs around the nation’s offshore islands.
What the volunteer divers and researchers discovered astounded them. While coral reefs were still relatively unaffected in the areas off Taitung (台東) and Penghu (澎湖), human activities were threatening their future.
“When we dived down and saw [the coral], we couldn’t believe that such a sight would exist in Taiwan. We thought, this is Taiwan’s ‘last remaining heaven,’” Chen said.
However, human activity such as development and construction, combined with over-fishing, threatens to destroy the coral reefs and endanger marine life, he said.
The researchers also found that a “black disease” was spreading quickly, covering reefs with a black disease and causing the reef coverage rate to drop in areas with more frequent human activity, such as Green Island (綠島) and Orchid Island (蘭嶼).
The discovery of a problem long suspected but seldom documented showed that coral was suffering widely in waters up to 5m deep and 300m offshore, Chen said.
“We still have to do more research to determine where the black disease comes from — is it caused by over-fishing or pollution?” Chen said.
Chen also expressed concern that in all the coastal areas they investigated, there was a serious deficiency of the types of fish that indicate the overall health of marine life. Over-fishing is caused by Taiwanese having a rich “seafood culture,” but lacking knowledge about marine preservation, he said.
Chen and other environmentalists urged the government to view coral reefs as living organisms, not rocks.
“Coral reefs are even more important than pandas because they are the largest living organism in the ocean,” Chen said, urging the government to pass laws to protect the reefs in order to ensure a rich and diverse marine ecology.
The environmental groups will be conducting another round of reef checks this year and encourage those who are interested in protecting marine life to sign up to volunteer at http://e-info.org.tw/node/40662 .
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AGENCIES
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and