Purpose
This administrative circular provides administrative, logistics and general information on the APEC Seminar on Sharing the Experiences of Mitigating the Impact of Extreme Climate on Aquaculture and Fisheries in Taipei on 21-23 March, 2012.
Background of the Seminar
Many parts of the world have experienced unprecedented extreme weather conditions, such as the super-strong tornado in USA, the extreme drought in Australia, the excessive precipitation accompanied by typhoons in the eastern Asia. These natural phenomena have caused great damages to communities, agriculture and aquaculture, apart from loss of life. Although typhoons, flooding or rainstorms are common climatic phenomena in the region of APEC, the century record of rainfall brought by the typhoon has caused unprecedented damages to the fisheries and aquaculture due to landslide and flooding. The Morakot typhoon that hit southern part of Taiwan in August 2009 could be considered as an alarming example. For the fisheries and aquaculture sector only, the record breaking pouring rainfall brought by Morakot typhoon which accumulated as high as 2700 mm in the mountain areas in just 24 hours, caused damage of 7,000 hectares of inland ponds and 2,000 hectares at coastal sea and caging sites where shrimps groupers and oysters were farmed, with estimated damages in aquaculture reaching US$140 million, plus US$17 million in fisheries infrastructure. The damages in other sectors and loss of life from the Morakot typhoon which are not mentioned here, are still a nightmare to the people particularly those in the affected area.
Such extreme climatic conditions have happened not only in Chinese Taipei but also in other member economies of APEC, and these phenomena will continue to happen. Chinese Taipei has gone through the painful process of adapting or mitigating the impacts on aquaculture and fisheries caused by such extreme climate, and Chinese Taipei is willing to share and exchange views with other member economies on such experiences. The aim of this Seminar is to enable member economies to learn lessons and share experiences in adapting and mitigating the impact and to provide a means of capacity building for those members to take appropriate measures to mitigate the impact of extreme climate on the fisheries and aquaculture.
