It also uncovered Taiwan\u2019s failure to adequately address issues such as murder and drug smuggling at sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese investigations paint a comprehensive picture of an industry in crisis,\u201d said Yen Ning, ocean campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cDespite talking the talk, Taiwan\u2019s Fisheries Agency appears incapable of monitoring the out-of-control tuna industry. Whether through lack of capacity or otherwise, our investigations reveal devastating impacts on marine life and people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The findings released in the report comes as a yellow card warning from the European Commission is about to expire.<\/p>\n
It was issued last October, when Taiwan was given six months to clean up its fisheries or face economic sanctions by the EU.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fishing industries of both Taiwan and Thailand have been shown to have human rights problems,\u201d said Mr Ning.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThe murky tuna supply chains of companies like Thai Union have little transparency, which means seafood lovers everywhere may be eating tuna tainted by human exploitation and environmental crime, and they\u2019d never know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Greenpeace East Asia report also explored abusive treatment of foreign crew. Interviews with South East Asian crew members revealed delayed and withheld payments, along with horrendous working conditions and exploitation by recruiting agents.<\/p>\n
Taiwan owns the most tuna longline vessels worldwide, and Taiwan\u2019s tuna take puts it in the top six Pacific fishing entities.<\/p>\n
Taiwanese companies export directly to markets and supply some of the world\u2019s largest seafood companies, including Thailand\u2019s troubled Thai Union Group.<\/p>\n
Large amounts of Taiwanese caught tuna are exported to Thailand for processing, where serious labour and human rights violations have been recently exposed. This not only risks further contamination of Taiwanese products, but can also contaminate exports from Thailand.<\/p>\n
Mr Ning concluded: \u201cThe yellow card should be a wakeup call for Taiwan to reform its fisheries, eliminate human exploitation and environmental abuse, and develop sustainable management of precious marine resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t just about trade, it\u2019s about Taiwan\u2019s responsibility to treat workers fairly and to contribute to the ongoing sustainability of our oceans.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Greenpeace East Asia investigation has exposed illegal shark finning, labour and human rights abuses in Taiwan\u2019s distant water tuna fisheries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-9831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9831"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=9831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}