Quang Nam province takes measures to control illegal fishing

The provincial Fisheries Division said the province had strengthened promoting dissemination to help local fishermen to understand decrees, circulars, and Law on Fisheries last year.

Therefore, the fishermen had understood the seriousness of illegally fishing in foreign waters, then, they actively installed vessel monitoring devices if their vessels were over 15m in length as well as recording and submitting their fishing diary to the local authorised agencies as regulations.

Data from the division shows that the province has 735 fishing vessels with a length of at least 15m.

Some 625 fishing vessels have installed the vessel monitoring devices so far, accounting for 85 per cent of the total fishing vessels in the province.

Other fishing vessels have yet to install the vessel monitoring devices for some reasons, of which, 55 fishing vessels are substandard to operate in the deep sea while 37 others have expired registration within 2 years.

Ngo Van Dinh, deputy head of the division said if we only counted fishing vessels with a length of at least 15m and operating in the deep sea, all of them had already equipped with vessel monitoring devices.

The province has also built the procedures for checking fishing vessels entering into fishing ports, monitoring the yield of loading and unloading fish; and the process of issuing certificates of fish’s origin, he said.

Dinh said the total number of aquatic species recorded at An Hoa Fishing Port was about 3,000 tonnes, mainly squid, small fish and tuna last year.

The procedures to trace the origin of fish were finished, the division were willing to check and provide data when businesses required, he added.

Dinh also added that thanks to efforts of the division and relevant agencies, the province has no violation of illegally fishing in foreign waters last year.

Efforts to fix shortcomings

Although the province has made achievements, the fight against illegal fishing still faces shortcomings.

Accordingly, vessels landed at An Hoa Fishing Port were mainly squid fishing vessels, thus, most of the vessels did not unload the squids right after landed. They often unloaded the squids few days later, he said.

Therefore, staff at the fishing ports had to check the fishing vessels twice, one at the landing time and second at the unloading time, he said.

It led to some difficulties, he said.

Another shortcoming was the number of staff, who in charge of checking illegal fishing of the province, was really shortage. Besides, the awareness of the fishing vessels’ owner was limited, so, some of them did not seriously implemented regulations, he said.

In response to the situation, the division would continue make efforts to improve the awareness of the local fishing fishermen, he said. The division would also minimise and eliminate IUU-related violations and develop a modern and responsible fishery.

The division would strictly control fishing vessels entering and leaving local fishing ports, refuse to allow unloading fish for vessels on the list of IUU-related violations and notify the relevant agencies to handle as regulations.

Moreover, the division would allocate more staff to monitor, update the yield of fish and inform to the local fishing ports’ management board one hour before the fishing vessels unload their fish, he said.

Dinh said the division had planned to tighten management of the seafood purchasing activities of organisations and individuals at the fishing ports, access to the national database system and the list of fishing vessels licensed for exploitation, the vessel monitoring database to verify the origin of fish and provide it as requirements.

Quang Nam is a province on the south central coast of Viet Nam. It has a long coastline and the number of fishing vessels is beyond 3,000. However, its infrastructure to serve fisheries activities has been still limited compared to other coastal provinces.