Tien Giang: Well-managed fishing vessels combined with the whole country to remove the IUU' yellow card'

On August 10, Tien Giang Province's Steering Committee for the Prevention and Control of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing (IUU) held a conference to summarize the results of its 7-month operation of 2023 and deploy the direction and tasks for the remaining months of the year.

According to Tien Giang Provincial People's Committee, the province currently has 1,286 registered fishing vessels. Up to now, 77% of fishing vessels have been reported, 99% of ships have installed cruise monitoring equipment, and the remaining four boats are being repaired or discontinued. From the beginning of the year until now, the functional branches of Tien Giang province have implemented many solutions to monitor, check and control fishing vessel activities at sea.

Since then, the units have proactively prevented and handled IUU violations, such as organizing a 24-hour duty to monitor and inform fishing boat owners about the vessel's loss of VMS connection, crossing the border on sea, synthesizing, listing, and exchanging information between functional forces to coordinate handling.

On the other hand, the Fishing Port Management Board and the Border Guard Station have coordinated well in inspecting and controlling fishing vessels before disembarking, ensuring all documents, equipment, and labor are on ships under the regulations. The work of certification of production and traceability of fishery products from catches has been implemented following the Fisheries Law, meeting the requirements of the EC recommendations. Continue to maintain propaganda on IUU prevention and control on the mass media system, especially the grassroots radio station network...

The authorities have organized 150 propaganda sessions with relevant content, attracting more than 3,600 fishermen to attend; distribute 1,300 leaflets; inspect and make 126 minutes of fishing vessels docking and leaving fishing ports. At the same time, list 81 fishing vessels at high risk of violating IUU and send them to coastal provinces for coordination in inspection and prevention. The units conducted reviews and inspections eight times. Thereby, detecting violations of fishing vessels, such as removing cruise monitoring equipment without the supervision of the supplier, the captain, or the chief engineer, needs diplomas and certificates issuing a sanctioning decision administration with over VND 200 million.

Thanks to the above measures, from 2022 until now, there have been no cases of fishing vessels of Tien Giang province exploiting in violation of foreign waters. Also, not detecting organizations and individuals that act as brokers to bring ships, fishermen go fishing illegally, violating regulations on IUU.

Mr. Nguyen Van Man, Director of the Tien Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said: "The industry has focused on propagating the Fisheries Law and related documents to localities and fishing boat owners. At the same time, a document is sent to the relevant provinces on the coordination of management of fishing vessels in Tien Giang province fishing outside the province that have not yet carried out the procedures for a name change or registration deletion. Notice that the Tien Giang fishing vessel is at high risk of violating regulations on illegal fishing and sent to the Department of Fisheries. They are coordinating with functional sectors to handle violations in the field of mining".

Currently, Tien Giang province continues to manage fishing vessels, well implement IUU regulations to welcome the EC's inspection team to inspect next October.

Mr. Pham Van Trong, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Tien Giang province, requested all levels and sectors to tighten drastic measures to prevent and combat IUU, determined to join the whole country in removing the EC yellow card.

Specifically, the province has well implemented the EC's recommendations, continues to overcome limitations, and strengthens the fight against IUU: Legal framework; Monitoring, inspecting, and controlling the operation of fishing vessels, managing fleets; Certification of output and traceability of aquatic products from capture; Law enforcement.

In particular, the Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Tien Giang province also directed branches, levels, and localities to strengthen further communication and dissemination of legislation on IUU prevention and control to ship owners and captains, especially understand the extent of Vietnam's waters, including overlapping sea areas that have not yet been demarcated.