Introduction

Located in a subtropical zone in the western Pacific Ocean, Taiwan is surrounded by sea with extensive coastal and offshore waters forming complex and diversified marine habitats, including continental shelves, mudflats, sandy beaches, river estuaries, rock cay, coral reef, seaweed bed, mangroves, sandbanks, lagoons, deep ocean, and underwater thermo-valves. In addition, the coastal current from Mainland China, the Kuroshio current and its sub-current from the north, and warm water from the south running through the Taiwan Strait bring rich diversity of fish species to the surrounding waters of Taiwan. All these natural environments form excellent habitats for marine fish species.

In recent decades, due to overdevelopment in fisheries, there appears a general status of overexploitation of fisheries resource. Furthermore, extensive development of the coastal areas and pollution of the coastal sea have brought negative factors on the marine environment and habitats, causing tremendous impacts on the abundance of fisheries resources and marine biodiversity. Therefore, in addition to the work of reinforcing fisheries management and prevention of pollution, the government of Taiwan has established fisheries resource conservation zones to protect marine habitats and marine environment and deployment of artificial reefs for the cultivation of fisheries resources, in order to conserve the fisheries resources in its waters.