Fisheries: Need to join hands in responsibility

For a long time, we have been calling fishing in the sense that the sea belongs to everyone, everyone can exploit it, and everyone does it their own way. This has caused many consequences in fishing, environmental pollution, and depletion of aquatic resources. We need responsible fishing, meaning that fishermen need to change their behavior with fishing by exploiting according to regulations, exploiting in conjunction with protecting aquatic resources, and aiming for sustainable exploitation.

Fisheries: Need to join hands in responsibility A corner of Lach Hoi port, Quang Tien ward (Sam Son city).

The story of combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Thanh Hoa province is not a new story. This is a task that has been implemented synchronously and resolutely by relevant levels, sectors and units for many years. However, through review, there are still some shortcomings and limitations that have not been overcome, such as: There are still many "3 no" fishing vessels (unregistered, uninspected and without fishing license). The monitoring of seafood output unloaded through ports is still weak. Law enforcement, verification and handling of IUU fishing violations are still limited compared to the violation case. In particular, many fishing vessels still lose connection to their journey monitoring devices...

To overcome the above limitations, the Thanh Hoa Fishing Port Management Board has mobilized all its human resources to go down to the decks of ships and into people's homes to propagate to ship owners to comply with the provisions of the law. Mr. Le Van Han, Port Manager of Lach Hoi Port, one of the people who directly went to each ship and each house to mobilize and propagate to fishermen, said that he himself had encountered many situations of resistance from fishermen, but when talking about the regulations, the strict penalties from the authorities, and for the common goal of removing the "yellow card" towards sustainable and long-term fishing, the ship owners listened and clearly understood the provisions of the law.

Along the Lach Hoi port route, besides the fishing boats that are stuck on shore due to not complying with regulations, there are still ships that return to port in triumph. These are large, modern ships, up to 25 - 30m in length. Mr. Nguyen Van Hieu, owner of ship number 92968-TS, said: During operations at sea, ship owners often support each other in terms of coordinates, fishing grounds, as well as compliance with regulations on seafood exploitation, not violating the exploitation of foreign waters. In case of detecting trawl fishing boats, boats using small mesh nets to fish in a destructive manner, not friendly to the environment, they are reminded, even reported to the authorities for handling.

As for ship owner Nguyen Duc Hai, in Quang Tien ward (Sam Son city), since being informed of the regulations on preventing IUU fishing, Mr. Hai has started the habit of going to declare and reporting. At the same time, he always equips himself with a fishing diary and output to compare when the authorities inspect. This recording helps him grasp the situation of increased or decreased fishing. Instead of like before, he only brought fish to the port to sell. Mr. Hai understands that if he continues to violate IUU fishing, fishermen will not only affect the image of the country but also make it difficult for their own "rice pot".

According to the Thanh Hoa Fishing Port Management Board, many solutions to overcome shortcomings and limitations, joining hands with the whole country to remove the "yellow card" of the European Commission in fishing have been and are being implemented. In addition to propagating and disseminating regulations in fishing activities, strong solutions are applied such as: strengthening the review and statistics of "3 no" fishing vessels, sending the results to the border guards, local authorities and related units for monitoring, supervision and strict management according to regulations. In addition, strictly implementing the inspection and control of fishing vessels leaving and arriving at ports in accordance with procedures. Making working records and administrative violation records for violating fishing vessels to send to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development inspectors and competent forces for handling according to regulations...

It can be said that all efforts and endeavors at this time are aimed at helping fishermen to properly implement the regulations in fishing activities of the Fisheries Law, aiming at professionalism and sustainability of the profession.

Article and photos: Dinh Giang

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