Raising awareness among fishermen about IUU-violated fishing

On April 5, at the People's Committee of Cat Tien town (Phu Cat district), a "hot" area of Binh Dinh province about IUU-violated fishing vessels, the Department of Foreign Affairs, in collaboration with the Provincial Border Guard Command and the Binh Dinh Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, organized a media session of some legal documents on the sea, maritime borders, and other issues related to the sea and islands for fishermen in the province’s coastal communes.

At the media session, more than 200 fishermen, ship owners, and captains of offshore fishing vessels were given information by reporters from the units about Vietnam’s Law of the Sea, the laws of several neighboring countries having maritime borders with Vietnam related to the handling of violations against foreign fishermen and fishing vessels, regulations related to fisheries management, combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and fisherman protection.

Thanks to the media session, the fishermen enhanced their knowledge of the law on the sea and sea borders, grasped basic information about the Law of the Sea, and raised awareness about law enforcement in order to minimize violations of the regulations, especially IUU regulations in the fisheries process. Binh Dinh is determined to completely solve the IUU-violated fishing during the peak period of "180 days of action".

At the media session, the fishermen were given communication leaflets by the officers of Cat Khanh Border Guard Station (Phu Cat district) and signed a commitment to abide by the law when operating at sea to avoid illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

Along with media activities, Binh Dinh has also been focusing on handling IUU violations in order to effectively enforce the law according to the EC's recommendations.

According to previous statistics, Binh Dinh has 318 ships that regularly operate outside the province and are in the high-risk group for IUU violations. In response to that situation, Binh Dinh Agriculture Industry has implemented a combined measure of "soft media, strict handling".

Specifically, after "catching" the number of fishing vessels in the high-risk group of IUU violations, in early March, the Binh Dinh agriculture sector established two working groups to visit southern provinces where Binh Dinh fishing vessels are working to work with fishermen and suggest they strictly comply with regulations in combating IUU fishing, especially for vessels that have been transferred but have not yet completed the procedures.

It is scheduled that the Inspection Delegation of the European Commission (EC) will inspect for the fourth time about regulations against illegal fishing in Vietnam in June. This is considered the last inspection for the whole country to remove the EC's yellow card if the situation of fishing vessels exploiting seafood illegally, unreportedly, and unregulatedly can be stopped.

Besides Binh Dinh, other localities are also making efforts to implement many measures to achieve the national goal of removing the EC yellow card, in which solutions to raise awareness of fishermen are being focused on and implemented in localities such as Soc Trang and Ninh Thuan.

The determined efforts to prevent violations in seafood exploitation by functional sectors and the consensus of fishermen right now are the keys to opening many great opportunities for Vietnam's fisheries industry to develop effectively and sustainably.