The Fisheries Agency and its counterparts in China and Taiwan have agreed to work together to prevent the overfishing of Japanese eel.
The three authorities decided to take joint countermeasures to protect Nihon unagi, or Japanese eel, for their mutual benefit. Japan, which is a major eel consumer, imports 60 percent of its supply of the fish from China and Taiwan.
As eel catches have been dwindling, they decided to work together to secure a stable supply in the future.
According to a plan agreed upon by executives of the three fishing authorities in December, they will share by May precise data on fishery yields, the amount of farmed eel produced and trade volumes.
The agencies also plan to build a "traceability system" in about two years to track global eel distribution routes in an effort to analyze the overfishing situation.
The United States had considered submitting a proposal for an international trade regulation on eel catches at a conference on the Washington Convention, also known as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), this March. Though it eventually decided against the proposal, calls for stricter regulation may start to be heard across the world if poor eel catches continue.
Low catches boost eel prices in Taiwan
The government is on the lookout for people trying to smuggle young eels out of the country as prices surge globally because of declining catches.
Eel stocks are being depleted around the world and catches of wild elvers, known as glass eels because of their transparent bodies, are rapidly declining in Asia, down from 41 tonnes to 25.2 tonnes in the last three years, according to data compiled by the Fisheries Agency.
In the same period, Taiwan’s catches have plunged to below 1 tonne per year, while prices surged to about NT$100 per eel last year, up from NT$10 per eel two decades ago.
The fishery officials also said they had approached Japanese and Chinese officials in September and this month to explore the possibility of cooperating in managing and recovering eel stocks under the APEC framework.
The officials said that Japan, which boasts a thriving eel-farming industry, is trying to raise glass eels in captivity to reduce their reliance on wild catches, and has succeeded in a few cases.
Taiwan does not have the technology required to cultivate the eels, the officials said.