That was the comment of Mr. Nguyen Hong Hai - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee at the meeting of the Steering Committee against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) on the morning of September 19, after implementing the peak period of necessary and urgent tasks to combat IUU fishing, preparing to work with the 4th EC Inspection Delegation.
According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in recent times, functional departments, agencies, and local authorities in coastal areas have continued to make efforts to implement solutions to combat IUU fishing. In particular, closely monitor and supervise fishing vessels at high risk of violating foreign waters. Statistics have been compiled and 113 fishing vessels of the province at "high risk" of violating foreign waters have been put under special surveillance. 100% of the installation of VMS equipment for operating fishing vessels has been completed and the fishing vessel monitoring system has been promoted to serve the monitoring, supervision, and warning of fishing vessels violating Vietnam's maritime boundaries.
Since the beginning of the year, 32 cases of fishing vessels violating maritime boundaries have been detected and warned through the fishing vessel monitoring system. Particularly, from May 12 to September 12, 2023, 22 fishing vessels were detected and warned of violating maritime boundaries. Thanks to that, apart from the case of a fishing vessel in Ham Tan district violating foreign waters in early 2023, no additional fishing vessels have violated foreign waters to date. Law enforcement and handling of violations have been strengthened, especially 2 cases of fishing vessels violating foreign waters according to Decree No. 42/2019/ND-CP have been handled, contributing to improving the effectiveness of law enforcement and deterrence. The process of managing, organizing the supervision of fishing vessels and output through ports, confirming and certifying the origin of aquatic products has been implemented with attention, preventing the situation of erroneous records being returned...
In addition, a general review and statistics of fishing vessels in the whole province have been completed. However, the management of fishing vessels still has many shortcomings. Through the review, the total number of "3 no" fishing vessels that have not been registered as of August 15, 2023 is 1,782 fishing vessels, an increase of 390 fishing vessels compared to the report in May 2023 (not including 118 "3-number" fishing vessels previously managed by the district level that have not been re-registered). Among the registered fishing vessels, 879 have expired fishing licenses and 690 have expired inspections. Some district-level localities have a very high proportion of unregistered fishing vessels, such as Ham Thuan Nam (68.38%), Ham Tan (93.95%). In addition, the coordination of reviewing, updating registration data, fishing licenses, and installing VMS of the province on the national database system is not synchronized and inconsistent.
At the conference, representatives of local leaders shared the difficulties in the process of general control and statistics of fishing vessels. The reason is that most of the fishing vessels that arise do not have papers, making it difficult to carry out new registration. In addition, many localities have not yet strengthened supervision and do not know the actual number of fishing vessels in the area... In addition, representatives of the Department of Fisheries, the Provincial Border Guard Command also raised difficulties when there is no basis to handle fishing vessel BTH 96238 TS, Ham Tan district, violating foreign waters in early 2023; it is not possible to handle 2 vessels that lost VMS connection for more than 10 days... Mr. Nguyen Van Chien - Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development also informed: "Binh Thuan is one of the 4 locations that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will establish a delegation to inspect in the coming time. Therefore, it is required that localities urgently carry out the key tasks that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development notes on combating IUU fishing in the province".
Concluding the conference, Mr. Nguyen Hong Hai praised the efforts of localities in counting and reviewing "3 no" vessels. However, many localities have revealed limitations in managing fishing vessels, in which Ham Thuan Nam and Ham Tan are two localities with a very high proportion of unregistered fishing vessels. Therefore, in the coming time, for "3 no" vessels that have been registered, inspected, and have expired fishing licenses, localities are required to focus on leadership and direction to continue establishing specialized teams to each commune to review and support fishermen in registering, inspecting, and issuing fishing licenses and focus on completing this work by September 30. At the same time, the Provincial Border Guard Command will coordinate with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and localities to have a direction to handle unregistered fishing vessels as a deterrent. Particularly for groups of newly emerging, unregistered vessels, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development needs to synthesize and report to the Provincial People's Committee before October 10.
Source
Comment (0)