Conservation zone
Recreating the squids’ spawning habitat was only the first step in Wang’s conservation efforts. One day Wang discovered that the places he had placed the bamboo fans had become paradises for anglers. “Even a novice can surely catch squid here.” As word of this bounty got around, although the numbers of bigfin reef squid soared, it was still rare to find a large one.
For this reason, Wang did his best to convince anglers not to fish in these places, while also calling on the government to quickly pass legislation to ban the catch and sale of bigfin reef squid smaller than 15 centimeters. Wang thought to himself: “There is legislation to protect crabs, and bigfin reef squid are scarcer than crabs, so why should it be impossible?” But for a long time he couldn’t get a response from the government.
Yet Wang did not give up, but ultimately changed his strategy, proposing instead that the coastal waters should be designated a protected area, in hopes of giving the bigfin reef squid an environment where they can mature without interference. This idea won the support of scholars and government officials, and in 2016 the creation of the “Wanghaixiang Chaojing Bay Resource Conservation Area” was announced, a first in the Keelung area.
Besides promoting the establishment of the conservation area, Wang also mobilized his diving friends to clear away discarded fishing nets from the seafloor in inshore waters. They removed these notorious “walls of death” so that fish of all sizes, as well as shrimp and crabs, would no longer be caught up in these nets and die.
Some fishermen derided Wang’s efforts, saying things like, “If no-one cracks down on fishermen who use drift gill nets, what’s the point of designating some so-called conservation area?” In the face of such remarks, the straightforward Wang took a boat out to sea to work with the coastguard to catch fishing boats illegally using drift gill nets. In addition to calling for strict enforcement and heavy fines as a deterrent, Wang urged the Keelung City Government to establish a registration system for drift gill nets, to encourage each and every fishing boat to manage its fishing gear responsibly. These measures finally persuaded many law-abiding fishermen who had long been angry about drift gill net fishing but hadn’t dared to speak out that Wang was “playing for real,” and they gave him their full support.
Wang’s ultimate vision is to expand the conservation area to include all of Fanzai’ao Bay (aka Wanghaixiang Bay). Although fishermen would no longer be able to fish in this area, they could follow the example of Fangyuan Township in Changhua County, where the local tradition of harvesting oysters from the sea by oxcart has become a resource for developing tourism. For example, they could make a living by using their fishing boats to take tourists out for marine activities.
Wang Ming-hsiang, who loves the sea so deeply, hopes to get more people to understand that the sea’s beauty deserves to be protected by us all.
A barrel sponge (Xestospongia) entangled in a discarded drift gill net. Abandoned nets seriously impact the seabed ecology.
Bigfin reef squid swim around a bamboo “reef.” The bamboo will gradually decompose and return to nature without adversely affecting the local environment.