Although the province has completed 100% of the installation of fishing vessel monitoring equipment (VMS), the situation of fishing vessels losing connection while operating at sea still occurs, significantly affecting the work of preventing illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
According to the Department of Fisheries, the province currently has 1,945 fishing vessels in operation with a length of 15 m or more that have installed VMS equipment, reaching a rate of 100%. Concentrated in 4 key fishing localities: La Gi, Phu Quy, Phan Thiet and Tuy Phong. As of March 15, 2024, 16 fishing vessels in Binh Thuan province have not maintained operations or disabled VMS equipment for more than 6 months (of which, 2 vessels are over 24 m in length, 14 vessels are from 15 to under 24 m in length). The results of the review and inspection of 2 fishing vessels with a length of 24 m or more, namely fishing vessel BTh-97188-TS and fishing vessel BTh-99577-TS, both residing in Tam Thanh commune, Phu Quy district. Both of these cases have lost connection to shore, due to business losses, so the vessels are on shore and cannot maintain operations. Currently, these 2 fishing boats are anchored at Phu Quy Port, subject to execution of judgment, awaiting liquidation. Regarding the 14 fishing boats with lengths from 15 m to under 24 m, through initial verification, boat BTh-99860-TS owned by Tran Ngoc Hoa, permanent resident of Ward 8, Binh Tan Ward, La Gi Town, sank at sea in December 2023, lost all documents and is undergoing deregistration procedures. Boat BTh-98467-TS owned by Mr. Tran Van Lai, permanent resident of Phuoc Hoi Ward, La Gi. The boat owner has died and is in dispute over inheritance rights. The boat has been anchored at La Gi Fishing Port since August 2023. The remaining 12 boats are docked due to business losses, awaiting sale.
In the case of fishing vessels that do not maintain operations or disable VMS equipment for more than 10 days, the whole province has 386 fishing vessels, of which 2 fishing vessels are over 24 m in length, 384 fishing vessels are from 15 m to under 24 m in length (247 vessels in the fourth quarter of 2023; from January 1, 2024 to February 29, 2024, there are 137 vessels). Regarding the 2 fishing vessels with a length of 24 m or more, verification shows that vessel BTh-96939-TS lost connection due to a technical error in the VMS equipment and had come ashore at Phu Quy Port since October 17, 2023 (arrived ashore 10 days earlier) and had a VMS signal again on October 25, 2023. The Fisheries Sub-Department has issued a document reporting the results of the coordination of handling to the Fisheries Information Center. The second case is fishing vessel BTh-97168-TS, which lost VMS connection on October 26, 2023. Through data comparison on the fishing vessel monitoring system, this vessel was traveling from Phu Quy Port to Phan Ri Cua Port to get fuel, entered Phan Ri Cua Port at 4:00 p.m. on the same day and turned off the VMS device before docking, so the system did not update the location at the port. This fishing vessel had a VMS signal again on November 6, 2023. Thus, through verification, both of the above fishing vessels had come ashore 10 days earlier, so they were not subject to a penalty record.
For 247 fishing vessels that lost connection for more than 10 days in the fourth quarter of 2023, 1 vessel lost connection offshore and is being reviewed, verified, and handled by the authorities according to regulations; 246 vessels lost connection onshore, many of which have now reconnected and are operating again, the rest are anchored at fishing ports in the province. For 137 vessels that lost connection for more than 10 days from January 1, 2024 to February 29, 2024, 3 vessels lost connection offshore and 134 vessels lost connection onshore. Accordingly, 3 vessels that lost connection offshore are being reviewed, verified, and handled by the authorities of the province according to regulations; 131 fishing vessels that lost connection onshore, currently 40 have reconnected and are operating again, the rest are anchored at fishing ports in the province.
Analyzing the causes, the leader of the Fisheries Department said that the subjective reason was that the ship owner did not pay the service fee for the operation of the VMS device, the captain turned off or disabled the device, due to loss of power source (including solar-powered devices). In addition, due to technical errors, the quality of the device was not guaranteed, and the fishing vessel monitoring software was sometimes unstable, which was also the reason for the loss of connection. There were also cases where the captain intentionally turned off or disabled the device to violate the fishing boundary outside of Vietnam's waters. However, in these cases, the competent authorities could not use VMS data as a legal basis to sanction administrative violations. Therefore, IUU violations, including fishing vessels operating outside of Vietnam's waters, detected through the VMS monitoring system were still not sanctioned, only stopped at the level of warnings and reminders, which reduced the effectiveness and efficiency in management.
The Provincial People's Committee has just issued a Decision on amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Regulations on management, exploitation, use and processing of information and data of the provincial fishing vessel monitoring system issued together with Decision No. 960/QD-UBND dated April 27, 2020 of the Chairman of the Binh Thuan Provincial People's Committee. In particular, the Provincial People's Committee requests the Department of Fisheries Control, Coast Guard, and Navy, upon receiving notice of fishing vessels losing connection/fishing vessels crossing maritime boundaries from the Department of Fisheries, to coordinate in reminding ship owners and captains to fix the connection signal (or calling on fishing vessels to return to maritime boundaries), and at the same time conduct inspections, handle and impose penalties according to their authority. In addition, promptly exchange and provide information related to fishing vessels losing connection/crossing maritime boundaries with functional units of Binh Thuan province, for handling according to regulations.
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