Proactively reduce fleet and fishing intensity
According to data from the provincial Department of Fisheries and Fisheries Control, out of a total of 2,714 vessels over 6m, the fleet of vessels over 15m long fishing offshore is 1,112, accounting for 40% of the fleet. Compared to other provinces, Nghe An has a higher offshore fishing fleet than the national average (the national rate is 30.1%).
With the above fleet capacity, Nghe An catches 180 - 200 thousand tons of seafood each year, accounting for 85 - 90% of the province's seafood industry value. After nearly 5 years of implementing the Fisheries Law , Nghe An has not had any enterprises applying for seafood traceability certification because there is no focal enterprise directly purchasing, processing and exporting seafood. Actively implementing the removal of the yellow card is even more urgent.
Mr. Tran Nhu Long - Deputy Head of the Sub-Department, in charge of the Sub-Department of Fisheries and Fisheries Control of the province, explained: Nghe An must strictly implement the regulations on combating IUU fishing to contribute to the whole country removing the yellow card. In fact, since the 2017 Fisheries Law, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has proposed a roadmap to reduce the fleet by granting licenses for ship quotas to provinces, including not granting licenses to build new ships and requiring strict management of converted ships.
In Nghe An, with a large fleet and a complicated situation of converting old ships purchased in the area, in addition to the regulations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Provincial People's Committee issued Decision No. 18/2020 and Decision No. 39/2022 (amended) stipulating specific criteria for approving the conversion and purchase of old ships. Accordingly, fishing vessels with hulls over 10 years old will not be approved or registered for exploitation in Nghe An.
Thanks to the above efforts, the management and licensing of fishing vessels has become stricter and more systematic. In Dien Chau, at its peak, the district had a fleet of nearly 900 fishing vessels in the offshore and nearshore areas. However, a representative of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Dien Chau district said: Since 2017, thanks to propaganda and reminders, along with continuous inspections, penalties and ineffective fishing, the number of vessels has decreased sharply. Currently, the entire fleet of Dien Chau district has only about 400 fishing vessels, mainly fishing in the offshore and nearshore areas.
Similarly, in Quynh Luu, the locality with the largest offshore fishing fleet in the province, Mr. Bui Xuan Truc - Deputy Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Quynh Luu district said: The cost of fuel, labor is increasing while fishing is not effective, so instead of waiting for the State to manage and reduce quotas, the fishing industry is also self-screening. Many ships do not have enough labor and are not effective in fishing, so they are forced to sell to change jobs, and any ships that catch a lot of fish are recruited and continue to fish.
According to the provincial Department of Fisheries and Fisheries Surveillance, due to difficulties in fishing, from 2020 to now, the number of fishing vessels in the province has decreased from 3,700 to about 2,714. From the beginning of 2023 to now, in order to manage the fleet, along with creating records and lists of vessels at risk of IUU violations, the Department and the provincial Border Guard force have reviewed and captured nearly 300 vessels that are not fishing or are being transferred, seized, or liquidated, so they have not been registered or re-inspected.
Resolutely handle fishermen to "go declare and report back"
According to the Fisheries Law, vessels over 15 m in length must complete declaration procedures at the estuaries when going out to sea to fish, and upon return must notify and dock at the designated port to report production and establish a traceability record. In addition, following the trend of integration and conversion of people's fishing to modern and responsible fishing, fishing vessels must have full procedures and operating licenses for crew and workers to be legal.
However, according to Mr. Phan Tien Chuong - Director of Nghe An Port Management Board, due to the difficulty of the fishing industry and low starting point, not many fishing vessels and fishermen are interested in complying with this regulation. Therefore, in the first 11 months of 2023, at 4 designated ports in Nghe An, only 3% of the total catch was monitored, lower than the national rate of 10-13% and far from the target of 30%. There are many reasons for this situation, but the most important is that fishermen do not have the habit of "declaring and reporting" and the capacity of fishing port infrastructure is still limited and inadequate.
A representative of the Nghe An Fisheries Association said: Every year, the province has nearly 2,800 waterway motor vehicles subject to inspection and registration, but the provincial Department of Fisheries - Fisheries Control only inspects about 45% of vessels 12 m or less, while 55% of vessels over 12 m in length must be inspected by inspection facilities outside the province. This is a disadvantage for Nghe An fishermen, because every time a vessel is due for inspection, fishermen have to ask facilities outside the province to come and inspect, which is quite cumbersome. However, because most of these facilities are located outside the province and if they do not update the fishing vessel inspection data into the VN-Fisbase system, it is difficult for local authorities to grasp and manage. Therefore, despite efforts, only 90.91% of fishing vessels in the entire province's VN-Fisbase data system have been updated, the rest have expired but have not been re-registered.
In addition, although since 2021, the province has supported fishermen to install VMS journey monitoring equipment for fishing vessels over 15m in length, along with monthly VMS subscription maintenance costs, the situation of vessels losing VMS signals while fishing is still common. In 2022, there were still 12,938 vessels losing signals, of which 396 fishing vessels lost connection for more than 10 days and in the first 11 months of 2023, there were 15,124 vessels losing signals, of which 433 fishing vessels lost connection for more than 10 days at sea.
Similarly, the situation of illegal exploitation of maritime boundaries has not ended when in 2022 there were 242 ships and in the first 11 months of 2023 there were 121 ships violating and being warned.
Mr. Tran Xuan Hoc - Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said: After the EC came to inspect and responded that the yellow card had not been removed, on November 4, 2023, the Prime Minister issued an Official Dispatch requesting ministries, branches and localities to synchronously deploy solutions to remove the yellow card from now until May 2024. In the coming time, Nghe An will focus on handling outstanding issues in combating IUU fishing, the situation of losing VMS connection signal for more than 10 days and vessels over 24 m violating maritime boundaries during fishing. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen supervision, require vessels to enter designated ports to monitor output; strengthen propaganda and mobilize people; at the same time, attach the role and responsibility of the heads of Party committees and localities in managing and supervising "3 no" vessels and vessels violating IUU fishing.
During inspections and working sessions with fishing provinces across the country, the Department of Fisheries said that it had granted a quota of 95,703 fishing licenses to the provinces, but the provinces could only manage 86,820 vessels with valid registration and inspection (until December 31, 2022). That means there are nearly 9,000 vessels that are not registered, inspected and have not completed the re-licensing procedures, so they are not managed.
(According to Representative of the Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development)
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