3.2.1. Sustainable Fishing and Natural Restrictions

As mentioned above, the marine area is affected by different seasons and wind conditions. In certain places, it would be difficult to dive due to the monsoon coming from the northeast from November to the following February. This is the windy season in A'tolan, and some locations face the wind, so the waves would be very rough to dive into. Furthermore, when the wind comes from the east, the ocean is usually murky, which prevents people from diving, especially in the periods of April to May and October to November, when the seasons are in transition in A'tolan; during that period, the visibility is not good enough to dive.

Another restriction is natural disasters. Typhoons are the issue that would limit spearfishing or other fishing activities. The most damaging typhoon to date in the Taitung area was Typhoon Morakot in 2009, which caused a lot of driftwood to float on the ocean for several months, stopping sunshine from reaching the coral reef, and then, the wood crashed into the coral. Therefore, the coral reef was destroyed by the typhoon, and the reef fish have decreased since then.

#### 3.2.2. Sustainable Fishing by Memory and Taboo

As mentioned above, there are stories about how greedy men drowned in the sea, and nearby reefs are named after people who died around there. Therefore, this forms an ideology in which people cannot be too greedy in taking foods from the sea. Secondly, there is a sacred coastal place named Pacifalan that A'tolan Amis people believe is the mythic place of the ancestors landing from overseas. However, the government had planned a tourism project to build up a resort on the sacred site, which is also an important fishing ground for A'tolan Amis people. The conflict between the A'tolan Amis and the authorities lasted about 10 years from 2001, and the government finally stopped the development project in 2011 [28] (pp. 97–103).

As for the taboos related to fishing among A'tolan Amis, firstly, it is not allowed to eat fish or to fish when harvesting rice, and men who have had sex the night before are not allowed to dive in the sea for fishing. Secondly, there is a dangerous inshore sea with strong rip currents that the A'tolan Amis call "the hungry ocean" limiting the number of people who are qualified to dive locally. Finally, A'tolan Amis usually do not spear sea turtles because they are the subject of a certain taboo. A'tolan Amis people believe that turtle shells are ritual objects related to the rain. The shamans of the Amis people used tortoise shells to pray for rain after a long period of drought, but if too many turtle shells were kept at home, they could cause a calamitous flood. Therefore, sea turtles have the sanctity associated with water.
