About half of the nation’s marine protected areas are completely or highly protected, the Ocean Conservation Administration (OCA) said on Friday, as it aims to meet international conservation goals.
The findings were from a comprehensive survey last year of all 45 protected marine zones around the nation, conducted for the first time in the agency’s history, it said in a statement.
Among them, seven were considered “completely protected,” while 18 were “highly protected,” it said.
Photo courtesy of the Ocean Conservation Administration
Nine were “moderately protected” and 11 had a low level of protection, it added.
The seven completely protected areas were Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin habitats along the west coast, Kenting National Park, Dongsha Atoll National Park, South Penghu Marine National Park, Wanghaixiang Chaojing Bay, the Fushan Aquatic Organisms Propagation and Conservation Zone, and the Penghu South Sea Columnar Basalt Nature Reserve.
These reserves have comprehensive management plans, regular ecological surveys and complete fishing bans, the OCA said.
The poorly preserved areas have labor shortages and lack resources to assist with conservation, it said.
The OCA in 2021 surveyed 22 zones after establishing a set of evaluation criteria, it said, adding that last year was the first time it evaluated all 45 areas.
The point of the survey was not to give points to each area, but to better understand the state of management in the nation’s marine protection areas to serve as a basis for improvement, it said.
For example, after the Shitiping Aquatic Organisms Propagation and Conservation Zone off Hualien County received a poor rating in 2021, the OCA and local communities worked together to draft a plan, and to conduct a survey and patrols for giant clam populations, it said.
The Keelung City Government cooperated with the OCA to conduct patrols in the Keelung City Aquatic Plants and Animals Conservation Area, significantly improving oversight, it added.
The UN Convention on Biological Diversity last year adopted a goal to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030, which Taiwan is striving to achieve, OCA Director-General Huang Hsiang-wen (黃向文) said.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS