Focus on solutions to combat IUU fishing

Monday, April 1, 2024 | 17:54:54

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On the afternoon of April 1, Comrade Lai Van Hoan, Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Head of the Provincial Steering Committee on combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) chaired a meeting to listen to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development report on overcoming shortcomings and limitations in combating IUU fishing.

Comrade Lai Van Hoan, Provincial Party Committee member, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Head of the Provincial Steering Committee on combating IUU fishing, spoke at the meeting.

Implementing Plan No. 30/KH-UBND dated February 6, 2024 of the Provincial People's Committee on the implementation of the peak period against IUU fishing, the agricultural sector and localities have synchronously implemented measures such as propaganda, inspection, and supervision of fishing vessels during the fishing process as well as strictly handling violations according to the recommendations of the European Commission on combating IUU fishing. The Provincial Border Guard Command and the Fisheries Sub-Department coordinated with local authorities to promote propaganda on the radio system of communes in the coastal border area, at ports, places of landing, and at the families of fishing vessel owners; organized 722 fishing vessel owners to sign a commitment not to violate IUU fishing, not to send fishing vessels to illegally exploit in foreign waters. Every week, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development reviews and notifies the list of fishing vessels at risk of violating IUU fishing to the authorities to prevent and not let the vessels go fishing at sea; Establish a 24/7 monitoring team to monitor fishing vessels, promptly detect fishing vessels that lose connection, fishing vessels that cross the sea boundary, notify the locality to contact the ship owner to comply with regulations on monitoring the journey, return to Vietnamese waters; promptly send notices to the locality and functional forces to verify and handle violating fishing vessels.

The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the standing agency of the Provincial Steering Committee on combating IUU fishing, organized a field inspection of the implementation in two districts and coastal communes and towns. Through the inspection, the implementation of combating IUU fishing has been synchronously deployed by Tien Hai and Thai Thuy districts to communes and towns; ship owners and captains of fishing vessels have been aware, conscious and responsible in implementing regulations on combating IUU fishing. However, there are still some shortcomings and limitations that need to be overcome: the fishing port management organization has not properly monitored the output of aquatic products according to the process such as directly monitoring the output of ships loading and unloading at the port according to regulations; the logbook and fishing reports are not legal, mainly memoirs; the management of fishing vessels entering and leaving the port is not guaranteed; the number of fishing vessels losing connection to the journey monitoring device is still high...

Representative of the Provincial Border Guard Command spoke at the meeting.

Leaders of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development spoke at the meeting.

Concluding the meeting, the Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Head of the Provincial Steering Committee on combating IUU fishing, requested the agricultural sector and localities to continue to focus on implementing solutions to combat IUU fishing and remove the "yellow card" warning from the European Commission.

He requested the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to organize two inspections in April to promptly urge and overcome shortcomings and limitations in combating IUU fishing. The Provincial Border Guard Command directed border posts to strictly inspect and control fishing vessels entering and leaving fishing ports and river mouths; take responsibility if fishing vessels that have not installed journey monitoring equipment, lost connection, or have incomplete paperwork go fishing at sea; strengthen the handling of fishing vessels violating IUU fishing; establish a logbook to monitor fishing vessels entering and leaving ports at border control stations. The districts of Tien Hai, Thai Thuy, and Kien Xuong organized propaganda on combating IUU fishing; functional forces strictly controlled, prevented, and strictly prohibited all fishing vessels violating 14 IUU fishing acts; Strictly handle fishing vessels that violate the regulations on lost connection to the voyage monitoring system (VMS), especially fishing vessels that lose connection to VMS for more than 10 days at sea, fishing vessels that exploit in the wrong area... Organize to review and closely monitor all fishing vessels that are not inspected, registered, have expired fishing licenses, have not installed VMS, have lost connection to VMS for more than 1 month, fishing vessels that have not painted the cabin or license plate in the management area, and prevent them from exploiting aquatic resources at sea. Publicly and transparently disclose the list of fishing vessels that have not been registered or inspected locally; arrange sufficient human resources and equipment to perform fishing port tasks; retrieve fishing vessel monitoring data, data from the national fishing vessel management software Vnfishbase before fishing vessels enter or leave the port and notify fishing vessels violating IUU fishing to the authorities for handling according to regulations.

Manh Thang - Luu Ngan

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