Inadequacies from planning and overlap in heritage buffer zone
Van Don is a key area for aquaculture (AI), accounting for half of the marine farming area of Quang Ninh province with 23,821 hectares, including 91 farming areas. However, the progress of handing over the sea area to enterprises and cooperatives here is still very slow.
To date, Van Don has 142 enterprises and cooperatives registered to request the handover of the sea area (of which about 1,700 households participate in cooperatives). However, the number of completed documents eligible for provincial approval is very low.
According to the People's Committee of Van Don Special Zone, one of the main reasons for the sluggish progress is that the Rural Development planning map in the area still has many shortcomings: some planning areas overlapped with the buffer zone of Ha Long Bay World Natural Heritage, must seek the opinion of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism before the Provincial People's Committee decides to hand over the sea.
Some planning areas have unreasonable areas, interspersed between farming households, rural areas, complex terrain or stormy areas where aquaculture is not possible.
Delay in handing over sea surface due to complicated procedures, high cost of document preparation
According to many cooperatives, in addition to the shortcomings in planning, the current procedures for handing over the license plate are quite complicated, involving 12 departments and branches. Most cooperatives cannot prepare documents themselves, so they have to hire a consulting unit to measure, establish a production project, and report on environmental impact assessment (EIA).
Mr. Tran Van Thien - Hau Nuoc Van Don Cooperative - said: "Many cooperatives have to hire consulting units with high costs, about 250 million VND/100 hectares to measure, draw maps, and prepare production projects. While the price of oysters is falling, only 3,000-4,000 VND/kg, but it is necessary to reach 6,000 VND/kg to have enough capital, causing many cooperatives to be discouraged".
Storm No. 3 (Yagi) in 2024 caused particularly serious damage to farmers in Van Don: an estimated 32,112 tons of aquatic products (including 25,638 tons of oysters); 2,000 hectares of oyster farming, 3,500 newly released fish cages were washed away. Estimated damage: oysters 1,353 billion VND, fish 533 billion VND, other seafood 395 billion VND.
Thanh Binh Aquaculture Cooperative on Ban Chan Island (Van Don) almost lost everything after the storm, causing a loss of about 5 billion VND. Despite recovering from natural disasters, 34 member households have quickly rebuilt production. The cooperative has been granted a technical development license by the People's Committee of Quang Ninh province and is carrying out procedures to hand over the license plate on site.
Mr. Dao Van Hien - Director of Thanh Binh Cooperative - said: "The development and manufacturing license, Seafood Supply Certificate is the basis for granting the Certificate of Origin (C/O) and the Certificate of Quality (CQ), so the Cooperative is determined to do it because it is directly related to the cost of aquatic products. But the biggest problem at present is still the high cost of using the sea area (VND7.5 million/ha/year). I hope that authorities at all levels will consider reducing it to better suit actual conditions".
To remove the sluggish situation in sea surface allocation, in addition to urging cooperatives and enterprises to promptly complete documents according to the instructions of the Department of Agriculture and Environment, the People's Committee of Van Don Special Zone needs to urgently establish an interdisciplinary team to inspect and handle violations in aquaculture; at the same time, stop cases of illegal use of sea surface, creating a foundation for the province's marine farming to develop sustainably and in the right direction.
