Problems of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and overcapacity of tuna fishing vessels

摘要

Until almost 1960, Japanese longliners for tuna expanded all over the world. During the course of the expansion of tuna longline fishery, the Japanese Fisheries Authority had substantially improved fisheries management ability. Since the late 1980s, Taiwan Province of China expanded its longline fishing capacity at a very rapid pace. In cooperation with Japan, the control ability of Taiwan Province of China was strengthened in the mid-1990s. It resulted in Taiwanese fishermen obtaining foreign registry outside the Taiwanese fisheries authority's control. In 1999 the Japanese Government started consultations with both fishing industry and authority of Taiwan Province of China and both sides agreed to set up programmes to scrap old flag of non-compliance - large-scale tuna longline vessels (FNC-LSTLVs) and to put those LSTLVs under strict control.