Recently, in Ben Tre province, there are still fishing vessels that violate foreign waters besides with the situations of low rate of registered vessels or fishing permets, or many ships leaving the port without proper procedure, not returning to the designated port, or incomplete catching record, and many ship lost its monitoring signal at sea.
In order to promptly overcome the limitations mentioned above while proactively be ready to work with the EC's IUU fishing inspection team and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in the coming time, the Provincial People’s Committee request departments and People's Committees of districts and cities to urgently implement the followings:
People's Committees of districts and Ben Tre city:
Directing the People's Committees of communes, wards and town to focus on the management of offshore fishing vessel owners in the area, and coordinate with relevant units in screening those at high risk of illegal fishing or violating foreign waters, assigning officials and party members in the area to be directly in charge of high-risk ship owners, carrying out advocacy and propaganda for ship owners, regularly supporting and assisting ship owners to inspect and monitor fishing vessels at sea, and guide ship owners to handle situations occurring at sea.
Department of Agriculture and Rural Development:
Holding prime responsibility, and coordinate with the Provincial Border Guard Command, the provincial and local police in strictly handling fishing vessels that do not comply with regulations; ending the situation of a number of offshore fishing vessels do not carry out inspection procedures when leaving the port or docking, especially for fishing vessels with a length of 24m or more and offshore fishing vessels operating in the inland waters, fishing vessels violating regulations on fishing areas. Recording of exploitation log books and porting reports of the shipowner must be correct.
Expeditiously complete the deregistration of fishing vessels in accordance with regulations after reviewing, fully updating the national fishing vessel database before October 30, 2022; inspect and compile dossiers for strict management of the number of ships lying on the shore, ships with expired exploitation licenses, and ships without installed cruise monitoring equipment.
Taking prime responsibility, and coordinate with the provincial border guard agency in effectively implementing the supervision of fishing vessels engaged in fishing activities at sea; well coordinate with the Vietnamese Coast Guard of Regions 3 and 4, and the Vietnam Fisheries Surveillance of Region 5 to strictly control Ben Tre’s fishing vessels operating in the bordering areas, to prevent situations where fishing vessels violate the sea boundary.
Department of Information and Communication:
Intensifying the dissemination of information and propaganda on combating IUU fishing, focusing on contents on the responsibilities of ship owners when participating in fishing activities at sea, sanctions for violations of IUU fishing, especially in the case of violating at foreign waters.
Provincial Border Guard Command:
Strengthen border control, patrol at sea, prevent ships from going out to sea without informing at Border Guard checkpoints, resolutely not allowing fishing vessels to go out to sea when failing to carry out the procedures for docking and leaving the port as prescribed. In case the ship is caught and sanctioned by the competent force at sea due to be not eligible to leave (such as no procedures for docking or leaving the port; not installing cruise monitoring equipment, or the cruise monitoring device has no signal at the time of departure; there is no fishing license or the exploitation license has expired), the Head of the Border Guard agency is responsible to the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee.
Provincial police:
Coordinating and supporting the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, provincial and local Border Guard agencies in combating IUU fishing; at the same time, direct the police forces of the communes to actively participate with the Fatherland Front, the grassroots socio-political organizations to carry out the propaganda and directly mobilize the owners of offshore fishing vessels to operate fishing activities in accordance with the law, without violating foreign waters.
Huong Tra (souce: tongcucthuysan.gov.vn)