Seasonal Fish, Sustainable Seas: Ocean Conservation in Our Bowls

Just as Japan celebrates Tsukiji and France treasures Marseille, Taiwan's island geography makes harbor culture essential to its identity. Beside night markets and old streets, bustling fishing ports regularly make it onto foreign visitors' Taiwan bucket lists. Think wild Wanli crabs at Yehliu and Guihou harbors, or plump oysters from Dongshi port and the offshore Waisanding sandbar.

Eating fish is also about eating seasonally. Spring brings Spanish mackerel, black pomfret, and fourfinger threadfin; summer serves up squid, crimson seabream, and horse mackerel; autumn delivers largehead hairtail, rough leatherjacket, and amberjack; while winter brings mullet, white pomfret, and red drum. These seasonal catches are deeply woven into Taiwanese cuisine.

The Finite Ocean Resources

While fish-eating culture seems deeply embedded in Taiwanese daily life, it seldom extends beyond "how to eat fish" stage—far from the deeper industry connections and conservation actions found in farm-to-table education. Many elementary and middle school lunch programs rarely serve seafood, fearing students might choke on fish bones.

But if children don't eat fish, don't know fish, and don't understand fish's nutritional value from an early age, they're unlikely to treasure fish—or care much about ocean issues—later in life.

The deep ocean may seem like an inexhaustible blue, but its resources are finite. Globally, destructive fishing practices like drift nets, dynamite, cyanide, and bottom trawling wreak havoc on marine ecosystems, causing biodiversity to plummet rapidly.

Globalized shipping has also allowed invasive species to spread unnaturally, threatening local ecosystems. More critically, over 80% of marine pollution originates on land—oil, fertilizer, trash, and toxic chemicals—creating long-term damage to ocean recovery.

As early as 2006, Science warned that large fish species could face extinction within this generation if overfishing and ecosystem damage continued—with wild seafood becoming extinct by 2048.

Make Eating Sustainable—Fish Shopping at Traditional Markets

In East Africa’s Olduvai Gorge in North Tanzania, fish bone remains dating back 1.8 million years were excavated, believed to be evidence that humans began consuming ocean resources.

Global marine fisheries were once sustainable, making up as high as 90% in 1974. However, since the 1980s, this has steadily declined as intensive commercial fishing and fast-growing aquaculture stepped in to fill the gap. Today, fishing and aquaculture combined production exceeds 80 million tons to satisfy global consumption.

Taiwan faces this same global marine resource crisis. Despite being surrounded by ocean, the island’s coastal fishing yields have been cut in half over the past 30 years, with 70% of seafood now imported.

Recognizing the gravity of the situation, Taiwan has actively promoted sustainable fisheries in recent years. Organizations like CoFishland in Tainan's Qigu and Fish Bar in Hualien are advancing fish education, gradually making sustainably sourced fish a lifestyle trend.

CoFishland promotes fish education in aquaculture through eco-friendly farming practices. Beyond designing hands-on fishpond experiences, they develop educational curricula and sell local small-scale aquaculture products, working to rally young communities around local innovation and inject fresh energy into sustainable fisheries.

Traditional markets are vital sources of daily ingredients, and choosing sustainably sourced fish can effectively reduce damage to marine ecosystems. Here’s how: eat less salmon—salmon feed relies on fish meal or trash fish, consuming massive ocean resources during farming. Bluefin tuna, bigeye tuna, albacore, and yellowfin tuna are already endangered species. Eat more horse mackerel—these migratory fish are caught with purse seines and lift nets that don't excessively impact the seabed or ecosystem. To eat more sustainably, choose silver-white and gray oceanic migratory species while avoiding colorful fish that live in coral reefs. Additionally, prioritize local catch to actively reduce the energy and resource waste from imports.

Toward 2050: Protecting Our Oceans Together Through Fish Education

Academia Sinica's continuous monitoring over the past decade reveals that Taiwan's catchable fish species have dropped from 147 to just 37. The 2020 coral bleaching event—Taiwan's largest on record—remains vivid in memory, with 30-40% of corals nationwide dying off. To prevent the prophecy of no fish left to eat by 2050, marine conservation is urgent. Through school education, community activities, and media outreach, we can awaken greater public attention to ocean protection.