Binh Thuan does not allow fishing vessels to violate foreign waters

To further drastically prevent illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Binh Thuan, the provincial People's Committee has sent a document to request all departments, authorities and People's Committees of coastal districts, towns, and cities to continuously and thoroughly implement the Prime Minister's strict order on combating IUU fishing so that to remove the European Commission's (EC) "yellow card" warning and follow the Committee's direction. 

Along with that, the Committee asked them to focus on promoting dissemination and education of the law on prevention and control of IUU fishing regularly and extensively in many suitable forms. Localities need to identify dissemination as a fundamental and thorough task to improve fishermen's awareness and compliance with legal regulations in order to reduce IUU fishing behaviors.

The Committee has assigned the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) to take prime responsibility and coordinate with other departments, agencies, and local authorities in coastal areas to implement a policy on supporting the installation of Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) on fishing vessels following Resolution No. 02 dated May 25, 2022, of the provincial People's Council. Those that have not yet been equipped with VMS are mobilized to urgently install it, ensuring that 100% of fishing vessels are installed with VMS in the third quarter of this year.

In addition, it asked the DARD to coordinate with the provincial Border Guard Commands in directing the representative offices of fisheries control units at fishing ports to strictly inspect fishing vessels entering and leaving in accordance with regulations. The Fishing Port Management Boards are requested to strictly supervise fishing boats entering and leaving the port, collecting fishing diaries, monitoring output, and certifying the origin of fishery products. The boards are required to preserve archiving records in a scientific way following regulations, at the same time review the work related to the prevention and control of IUU fishing at the port to prepare carefully for the inspection of the EC's inspection team.

The DARD should also assume a prime responsibility, and coordinate with other departments, agencies and localities in inspecting and assessing the conditions of fishing port infrastructure and its sedimentation, etc. to report to and propose to the Provincial People's Committee to timely issue solutions meeting requirements of fishery production and IUU fishing prevention and control.

In the immediate time, the DARD is urged to urgently coordinate with the Department of Planning and Investment, the Department of Construction, the Investment Project Management Board for Agricultural and Rural Construction, and the People's Committee of La Gi town to undertake inspection and assessment of degradation and environmental pollution in the 90-200 CV area at La Gi fishing port, so that to propose remedial measures with completion time required not later than September 15, 2022.

In addition, the DARD should direct the Fisheries Sub-Department to closely collaborate with functional forces and local authorities in the sea area to review the number of fishing vessels, focusing on registering and granting fishing licenses for management and control of their capacity and practice conditions in accordance with the Fisheries Law 2017. 

The provincial People's Committee has requested the People's Committee of La Gi town and localities where there are many fishing vessels with high-risk violations, to be more drastic in controlling and preventing them from violating foreign waters.

Local authorities need to assign officials in communes and villages to monitor and firmly manage boats and sea workers in their areas and promote the role of local mass organizations in monitoring, supervising, timely detecting, and preventing fishing vessels with suspicious signs of illegal fishing in foreign waters, especially, those fishing vessels that regularly operate and stay outside the province, or those that are not qualified to practice since they are less than 15m in length, but still go fishing in the deep seas ...

With a coastline of 192km and a territorial sea of 52,000 square kilometers, Binh Thuan Province is considered one of Vietnam's three largest fishing grounds. The number of fishing vessels in the province reached 6,768 by June 10, 2021, of which 1.892 are boats with a length of 15-24m and 36 are over 24m long.

By June last year, the province's rate of fishing vessels with a length of over 15m attaching VMS  reached over 93%. Such a figure is one of the results achieved in implementing solutions to prevent illegal fishing in the province with an effort to remove the "yellow card" imposed by the EC.

Since the EC issued a yellow card to Vietnam's fisheries, Binh Thuan, together with other 28 coastal provinces, has made efforts to implement solutions to combat illegal fishing following EU regulation to prevent, deter, and eliminate IUU fishing.

According to the province’s authorities, this is one of the most important and leading tasks.

Since last year, Binh Thuan province has seriously and drastically implemented the directive documents of the Party and the Prime Minister, the National Steering Committee on IUU, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, as well as utilized the drastic intervention of the whole political system to carry out tasks and solutions to prevent and stop fishing vessels from violating foreign waters and to abide by the EC's recommendations.

Particularly, heads of relevant departments, units, localities, and organizations have been assigned with responsibilities, promoting the synergy of the whole people in the task of combating illegal fishing following anti-IUU fishing regulations.

The representative offices of fisheries control at Phan Thiet, La Gi, and Phan Ri Cua ports have carried out inspection and control of fishing vessels following regulations. According to results obtained in the first 6 months of 2021, Phan Thiet fishing port inspected and supervised 1,120 fishing vessels entering the port to load and unload seafood with a total output of 7,160 tons; collected 992 mining logs (reaching over 88%).