Fishing ports in Binh Dinh to improve supervising to fight against IUU

The central province of Binh Dinh has tightened the control and management of fisheries and vessels operating at its fishing ports in Binh Dinh in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) based on the European Council's (EC) recommendations.

With busy fishing ports, Binh Dinh has been a place for many local fishing's boats and ones from the neighbouring areas to load and trade the seafood, then distributing to the Central Highlands and to southern provinces of Laos through the Highway 19. As the volume of ships, boats, vehicles and seafood products is large, the provincial fishing port’s management board considered control and supervision of those activities a key task.

Nguyen Anh Dung, deputy director of Quy Nhon Fishing Port Management Board said to implement the 2017 Fisheries Law and urgent measures to combat IUU at fishing ports in the province, most owners of fishing boats and fishermen have obeyed the regulation of notifying their vessel docking one in one hour before entering the port and recording the exploitation log and declaring their seafood output .

In particular, most of the fishermen have understood the prohibitions against illegal fishing vessels of IUU.

He said: “In 2020, the output of seafood through the port reached 35,900 tonnes and we have well monitored all activities through the port, strengthening the work of certifying fishing output in accordance with the regulations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.”

Dung said they set up a team of three staff at each fishing port for the supervising. The team is to check the time and type of arrival seafood at the port to issue a receipt, which is the basis for seafood purchasing businesses to confirm the origin of seafood sources.

Last year Quy Nhon fishing port has encouraged 30 fishing households to classify their products at the port’s special area to ensure food hygiene and safety. The port will call more household to do the same activities this year.

To prevent local fishing boats from encroaching on foreign waters, the provincial department of Agriculture and Rural Development has strengthened Quy Nhon fishing port with a relating software.  

Binh Dinh granted Quy Nhon fishing ports a device to monitor all activities of ships and seafood trading in the port. They also install VHF broadcasting stations at De Gi and Quy Nhon fishing ports to receive information about fishing vessels at the sea.

The VHF broadcasting stations will certify that fishermen comply with the report before the ship arrives at the port, said Dung, adding it is a point for the EC to remove the IUU status for aquatic products of Vietnam.

Dung said currently, Quy Nhon Fishing Port Management Board coordinates with Binh Dinh Fisheries branch to promote the education for fishing boats on international regulations on legal fishing. Boat owners must commit not to use of harmful chemicals in the fish storage process. Up to now, all offshore fishing boats in Binh Dinh have complied with the declaration and logging of exploitation.

"Even the near-shore boats must also write and report their operation logs, while boats with a length of less than 15m even are not forced to write a but still make an exploitation report, said Dung.