Nghe An: Focusing on overcoming the European Commission's yellow card on fisheries exploitation

Fishermen of Quynh Luu district fishing in the Gulf of Tonkin. Photo: Document

Implementing Directive No. 45/CT-TTg dated December 13, 2017 of the Prime Minister on a number of urgent tasks and solutions to overcome the European Commission's warning on combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; Nghe An Provincial People's Committee has issued many directive documents and action plans such as Plan No. 68/KH-UBND; Directive 06/CT-UBND on strengthening the fight against IUU fishing. In particular, in order to strengthen the implementation and direction of activities to overcome the "yellow card", on September 26, 2019, Nghe An Provincial People's Committee issued Decision 3787/QD-UBND on the establishment of Nghe An Provincial Steering Committee on IUU with members being leaders of provincial departments, branches, and sectors, leaders of People's Committees of coastal districts and towns.

The work to overcome the IUU "yellow card" in Nghe An is making positive changes. Photo: PV

Implementing the action plan of the Provincial People's Committee, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development established an interdisciplinary working group to inspect and control fisheries at the fishing ports of Cua Hoi, Lach Van and Lach Quen; each group has 7 members, including representatives of the leadership of the Department of Fisheries, the Provincial Border Guard, and the Nghe An Fishing Port Management Board.

The interdisciplinary team is responsible for organizing supervision when ships dock, load fish, leave port, checking the recording and submission of fishing logs, fishing vessel registration papers, technical safety papers, fishing licenses, certificates, safety equipment, monitoring the journey, etc. Up to now, the number of fishing vessels entering and leaving ports has been basically controlled, the phenomenon of fishing vessels operating in foreign waters in the past has been overcome, the work of recording and submitting fishing logs has been complied with by fishermen.

Propaganda and dissemination of regulations on related contents are also focused. In the first 9 months of 2019, a "Conference on implementing urgent tasks to overcome the European Commission's "yellow card" warning" was held, 12 training courses on the Fisheries Law and guiding documents, 1 training course on the implementation of the Regulation on certification of exploited aquatic products exported to the EU; broadcasting propaganda on the loudspeaker systems of interdisciplinary teams and fishing ports on the work of combating IUU fishing...

Strengthen inspection, examination and control of fishing activities at sea.

In the first 9 months of the year, Nghe An Fisheries Sub-Department organized 155 inspection and control trips at sea, with a working time of 175 days, inspecting 2,748 vehicles. Administrative violations were sanctioned against 85 vehicles (15 vehicles storing and using electric shock tools for fishing; 23 vehicles operating in the wrong fishing area; 5 vehicles operating in the wrong fishing profession; 17 vehicles using expired fishing licenses; 4 vehicles not re-registering fishing vessels according to regulations and 21 vehicles with other violations); with a total administrative fine of 624,050,000 VND.

The monitoring of fishing vessel activities has been carried out as planned. The upgrading of the Shore Station (Department of Fisheries) to connect with the Central Shore Station system (Directorate of Fisheries) to better serve the monitoring and management of fishing vessels operating in the sea areas is being completed. Regarding the installation of voyage monitoring equipment for fishing vessels, up to now, 100% of fishing vessels with a length of 24m or more have completed the installation, according to the roadmap prescribed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The interdisciplinary working group inspected and guided fishing boat owners through procedures before leaving and docking at the port. Photo: PV

In order for fishing to become a responsible and environmentally friendly economic profession, in the coming time, management agencies, interdisciplinary working groups and local authorities will continue to strengthen the dissemination of the 2017 Fisheries Law and related documents to fishermen; provide guidance on methods of keeping fishing logs, declaring output through ports, focusing on overcoming the recommendations of the European Commission, contributing to the effort to remove the "yellow card" in Vietnam's seafood exploitation activities./.