Not allowing fishing vessels violating IUU fishing to go to sea

The People's Committee of Quang Ninh province has worked with 9 coastal localities, requesting to speed up the registration, inspection, and issuance of exploitation licenses for all fishing vessels according to regulations. In particular, strictly handle fishing boat owners who exploit seafood illegally, without reporting, without following regulations. These localities need to closely grasp developments in fisheries exploitation, and local leaders are responsible when IUU violations occur.

Currently, most units have established zalo groups and arranged forces and equipment to ensure operating conditions at control points. Quang Ninh Department of Agriculture and Rural Development organizes 24/7 monitoring and supervision of fishing vessels at sea, records and stores information about violating fishing vessels updates information about fishing vessels losing VMS connection, creates a list of fishing vessels that do not go fishing, and fishing vessels at high risk of violating IUU fishing.

Cai Rong Port Fisheries Control Office (Van Don district) has arranged for 2 officers to monitor activities via VMS daily for fishing vessels with a length of 15m or more. Thereby, the loss of connection rate decreased to 23%, down 27% compared to the time before August 5, corresponding to 65 ships reconnected.

It is known that from September 1, if fishermen and vehicle owners do not strictly comply with registration, inspection, and declaration according to regulations, the exploited aquatic products will be considered illegal and their vehicles and their products will be confiscated according to regulations.

According to Mr Thieu Van Thanh, Deputy Director of the Department of Fisheries, the unit is continuing to find the reason why 64 ships lost connection, to complete the goal of 100% of fishing vessels with a length of 15m or more registering and updating Vnfishbase and being granted a fishing license.

Along with that, units and localities organize peak months, simultaneously deploy troops to inspect and control fishing vessels at sea, and strictly handle violations of IUU fishing. Especially behaviours related to logging, fishing reports, fishing in the wrong areas, crossing maritime boundaries, violations of VMS, and resolutely not letting fishing vessels violating IUU fishing go out to sea.

Recently, Ca Mau has been one of the pioneer localities in applying information technology in the management and control of fishing vessels in the province through two inter-connected management software to control fishing vessels. Which, there is Excel Online data table application software on the Google Sheets platform for localities to report and store information about fishing vessel registration or registration expired, fishing vessels that lost connection signal for 10 days or more, and fishing vessel lying on the shore,... Thereby, creating a database for IUU Steering Committees of provinces and districts to check and direct to promptly overcome limitations.

Ca Mau province is considered one of the four key fishing grounds in the country, with large seafood reserves, rich in types. In recent years, the fishing industry at sea, especially offshore fishing in Ca Mau, has developed very strongly.

In addition, the authorities of Ca Mau province regularly inspect and urge the implementation of anti-IUU work. As a result, the management of fishing vessels in and out of the port, control of fish output at the wharf, and other issues have made more progress than before.

Mr. Phan Hoang Vu, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ca Mau province shared: The propaganda and dissemination of legal regulations against IUU fishing has been done very well in the locality over the past time. At the same time, the Central Government is also very interested in this issue, the National Steering Committee has sent specialized forces to coordinate with localities. Up to this point, most people involved in marine exploitation have understood how the laws of Vietnam and foreign countries are on this issue.

“It can be said that up to this point, Ca Mau province has effectively implemented. In the coming time, the province will maintain the implementation so that Ca Mau's fishing vessels no longer exploit foreign waters, contributing to the EC's early withdrawal of the 'yellow card' for Vietnamese fisheries", Mr. Vu is determined.