Combating IUU fishing: Resolutely handling fishing vessels that lose equipment connection

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, one of the important “keys” to combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is the issue of connecting fishing vessel monitoring devices. Along with the whole country, Binh Dinh province is implementing many drastic solutions to deal with the situation of losing device connection.

According to the Department of Fisheries (Department of Agriculture and Environment), from October 2023 to early 2025, the province's functional forces inspected, controlled, detected and penalized 72 cases related to fishing vessel monitoring devices (VMS) with more than 3.7 billion VND. Of which, 34 cases lost connection for more than 10 days and 38 cases lost connection for more than 6 hours.

Positive change

Mr. Nguyen Duy Phuoc, Deputy Director of Viettel Binh Dinh, said that the unit is providing nearly 1,000 VMS devices at a price of about 30 million VND/device (including 12-month subscription fee). Compared to last year, from the beginning of 2025 until now, the number of fishing vessels requesting Viettel Binh Dinh to confirm the cause of lost signal of the journey monitoring device has decreased by nearly 70%. This change is due to fishermen's better awareness of preserving and maintaining the device and complying with legal regulations during fishing.

Worried about losing VMS device signals, many fishing boats in the province have chosen to install 2-3 VMS devices on their boats. Owning 5 offshore fishing boats, installing 2-3 VMS devices/boat, spending a lot of money on this, but Ms. Vo Thi Nhi (Hoai Thanh ward, Hoai Nhon town) is still very worried because losing the signal for only 6 hours will result in a fine. "I think that the penalty for losing VMS device signals needs to be considered for many reasons, especially when fishing boats are hundreds of nautical miles away from the border with neighboring countries or are on the way to shore," Ms. Nhi shared.

As one of the localities with many fishing vessels losing connection to VMS devices in recent times, Phu My district is actively coordinating with the Department of Fisheries to update information on lost connections and notify communes, requesting immediate contact with ship owners and captains to reopen the devices. The district People's Committee directed functional units to coordinate with local authorities to work with ship owners and captains to verify the cause of the loss of connection immediately after the ship owners and captains return to shore. On that basis, propose handling according to regulations and request ship owners and captains to sign a commitment not to repeat the offense.

In Phu Cat district, thanks to close monitoring of the situation, 28 fishing boats that had lost connection signals at sea since the beginning of the year were discovered in time. The boat owners reopened them and signed a commitment with the district to maintain them 24/7.

Most fishing boats in Binh Dinh have installed VMS equipment as required. Photo: NN

Consider carefully, determine the cause

According to ship owners, one of the main reasons for the loss of signal is that the satellite signal of the supplier is intermittent at times, the transmission is unstable. Some equipment has technical errors. In addition, the authorities discovered that some fishermen deliberately interfered with the equipment, causing the loss of connection with the intention of going to foreign waters to fish illegally. The province is assigning the Provincial Border Guard Command to work with telecommunications companies to clearly identify the cause of the loss of connection. The process of finding the cause must carefully consider many factors, absolutely not allowing fishermen to take advantage of technical connection errors. Telecommunications companies also do not arbitrarily confirm transmission errors to prevent illegal acts of fishermen.

At a meeting with central ministries and branches and online with coastal provinces on amending and supplementing a number of Decrees in the fisheries sector, on the morning of March 25 in Hanoi, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha - Head of the National Steering Committee on combating IUU fishing requested clarification of the roles and responsibilities of the parties involved in the situation of disconnecting VMS equipment. He said that there are 4-5 suppliers but there is no consensus on technical standards and the direction for handling fishermen who violate the law is still mainly administrative sanctions.

According to Minister of Agriculture and Environment Do Duc Duy, there are many factors affecting the story of "VMS equipment". Firstly, the institutional aspect is already there. Secondly, the technical development issue has clearly not been fully resolved, not synchronized, and there are no effective control tools to accurately and convincingly determine whether the device disconnection is due to intentional fishermen or technical errors... VMS equipment is the key to the story of combating IUU fishing, so it is necessary to focus on finding a solution to thoroughly handle violations. The process of finding and implementing solutions requires the active participation from the beginning of service providers.

NGOC NGA

Source: https://baobinhdinh.vn/viewer.aspx?macm=5&macmp=5&mabb=343686