Only 2 months left to remove IUU's 'yellow card'
Attempts to remove IUU 'yellow card'
After many years of implementing anti-IUU fishing as recommended by the EC, the management of fisheries activities has become increasingly strict. Faced with the Government's drastic instructions against illegal fishing to remove the IUU yellow card, many localities that are hot spots of violations have made efforts to overcome them.
Coastal localities are making efforts to strengthen solutions to remove the IUU yellow card .
Kien Giang is one of the provinces with key fishing grounds in the country, with a long-standing, strongly developed fishery, ranked first in the country for a long time, has created jobs for nearly 70,000 workers and contributed to economic development for fishermen, making an important contribution to the economic development of the province. According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, recently there were still 7 fishing vessels in Kien Giang provinces (5 fishing vessels), Quang Ngai, and Tien Giang violating and crossing maritime boundaries. There are 4,375 fishing vessels over 15 m that have not turned on their cruise monitoring equipment for more than 6 months, including 220 fishing vessels over 24 m.
Right from the early days of 2024, border stations in Kien Giang have directed checkpoints and working groups to continue to mobilize all ship owners and operators with offshore vessels write a commitment not to violate foreign waters to exploit seafood; when the ship departs, it must have complete documents, nautical charts, fishing logs, information and communication devices to serve the determination of maritime boundaries to limit the situation of fishing vessels violating IUU related regulations. Units regularly check trip monitoring equipment and exploitation logs; At the same time, instruct fishermen to complete documents according to the provisions of law before going out to sea. Owners of net fishing boats near the shore commit to not using explosives, electric shocks, or banned substances to fish.
However, according to a representative of the Fisheries Association of Rach Gia City (Kien Giang), many ship owners in Rach Gia City are struggling to cover the costs of going offshore. The cost of a sea trip is currently up to nearly 1.3-1.4 billion VND for a pair of ships sailing for about 30 days. For other fishing vessels, the cost is about 500-600 million VND/ship, of which gasoline and oil costs account for more than 70% of the total trip cost. Gasoline and oil prices have remained high since Tet, plus the prices of other items such as ice, food, and food have also increased along with oil prices. That difficult context makes efforts to advise ship owners to comply with legal regulations to remove the IUU yellow card even more difficult.
In Nghe An, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has compiled a list of fishing vessels that lost their cruise monitoring device (VMS) signal for more than 6 hours but did not send a text message to confirm their location at sea, The fishing vessel lost its signal for more than 10 days at sea but did not return for repairs... provided to the Provincial Border Guard for handling according to regulations, focus resources on organizing patrols and control in the waters of Nghe An province, handling violating fishing vessels, especially fishing vessels fishing in the wrong areas…
Time is running out
At a conference to deploy solutions to overcome the yellow card of IUU recently organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Tran Dinh Luan, Director of the Department of Fisheries, informed: After 4 actual inspections, the Inspection Team of the European Commission (EC) recognized and highly appreciated Vietnam's efforts in combating IUU fishing. However, up to now it has not been possible to remove the yellow card warning because there are still many restrictions that do not meet the requirements. If this situation persists, the risk of the warning level being raised to red card is very high.
According to the leaders of the Department of Fisheries, overall, up to now, some localities still have problems that are slow to overcome, such as: the situation of illegal fishing vessels and fishermen in foreign waters continues to occur and becomes complicated; Control, confirmation, certification and traceability of exploited aquatic products are not effective. Besides, many localities have not been able to manage and control 3 no fishing vessels; Local agencies and functional forces have not fully implemented their responsibilities and tasks in investigating, verifying and sanctioning anti-IUU fishing acts such as illegal fishing in foreign waters, disconnection or illegal sending and transport of VMS, violations of fishing logs, fishing vessels operating in the wrong areas… leading to very limited results, not synchronized between localities, not ensuring the strictness of the law…
Talking to Thanh Nien, a media representative of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers worried: The time from now until April 30 is still too short. But the most important thing is the awareness and psychology of fishermen when they find a source of seafood to catch, no one wants to share their profits, especially in the context of scarce seafood resources and increased exploitation costs. For that reason, for many years now the situation of losing communication at sea or fishing in the wrong areas has not been overcome.
We are just worried that it will be difficult to improve this situation 100%. If the IUU yellow card is not removed, seafood exports to the EU will be delayed because of procedures for confirming and certifying exploited seafood. There are still shortcomings. Among them, many industries such as tuna, squid, octopus and marine fish will be affected the most, he said.
In a recent telegram, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang requested ministers, heads of relevant ministries and agencies and Chairman of the People's Committees of 28 provinces and cities directly under the coastal central government to focus on leadership and direction to completely resolve current shortcomings and limitations; which focuses on implementing urgent and key tasks and solutions from now until April 30, 2024.
What does the EC recommend to Vietnam?
After the 4th inspection in October 2023, the EC issued an official letter on the results of combating IUU fishing in Vietnam. Accordingly, the EC recommends that Vietnam needs to apply strict control mechanisms to ensure that all fishing vessels that have been deregistered are not allowed to participate in fishing activities. Ensure fishing vessel data information in VNFishbase is completely accurate and have a mechanism to monitor and urge localities to update the fisheries database according to regulations. Maintain the ban on new ship registration; 3 no fishing vessel control. Review the handling process for VMS disconnection. In particular, sanction all cases of violation of VMS regulations, violations of illegal seafood exploitation in foreign waters, this is the most important recommendation at this inspection by the EC to consider removing the yellow card warning by the deadline of the end of April 2024.
Cre: THANH NIÊN
Ngày đăng : 18/05/2024
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