Still exists
On September 6, in an exchange with Lao Dong Newspaper, Mr. Nguyen Hoai Nam - Chief Inspector of Quang Tri province said that he had just deployed an inspection of the implementation of legal regulations on combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing at a number of agencies, units, and localities.
Through inspection, functional agencies noted that besides the achieved results, the work of combating IUU fishing still has some shortcomings and limitations that need to be overcome.
In which, the development of inspection plans at some units has not been fully implemented. The work of preparing dossiers for handling administrative violations is still lacking, some sanctioning dossiers have not kept sufficient documents proving the compliance with sanctioning decisions.
In some cases, the format of documents, the determination of violations and the citation of legal grounds are not accurate or incomplete according to regulations.
The inspection of fishing vessels docking at ports also has cases that do not ensure the correct professional procedures. Data updates on the VNFishbase system at some private fishing ports are not timely and uneven.
In addition, the situation of loss of connection to fishing vessel tracking devices still occurs; fishing vessel data has not been updated in time at some times. The awareness and sense of law compliance of a part of fishermen are also limited.
According to the Quang Tri Provincial Inspectorate, the inspection activity aims to assess the implementation of IUU fishing prevention tasks, and at the same time detect and rectify shortcomings in state management.
In recent years, Quang Tri province has identified IUU fishing prevention and control as a key and urgent task to implement the recommendations of the European Commission (EC), contributing to the whole country removing the "Yellow Card" warning for Vietnam's seafood industry.
Functional forces coordinate to control fishing vessels entering and leaving ports; monitor fishing activities at sea; manage output, trace seafood origin and handle violations.
Control all fishing vessels
Quang Tri Provincial People's Committee has issued a Decision on the Regulation on coordination in monitoring and controlling the activities of fishing vessels entering and leaving ports, entering and leaving ports and exchanging information to handle fishing vessels violating IUU fishing in the province.
Regulations on specific task assignment for the Department of Agriculture and Environment, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Provincial Border Guard Command, the Provincial Police, and the People's Committees of communes and wards managing fishing vessels.
In which, the Department of Agriculture and Environment is the lead agency advising the Provincial People's Committee to direct the implementation of IUU fishing prevention measures, and is also the standing agency of the Provincial Steering Committee for IUU fishing prevention.
The Department is responsible for directing the Sub-Department of Fisheries and Fisheries Resources Surveillance, the Fisheries Representative Office to inspect and control fishing vessels docking and leaving ports according to the regulations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment.
The Provincial Border Guard Command is assigned to take the lead in inspecting and controlling 100% of fishing vessels entering and leaving ports, ensuring that fishing vessels going out to sea have full papers of people, vehicles and safety equipment according to regulations.
Fishing vessels that do not meet the conditions for fishing, lack safety equipment, do not install or do not maintain the operation of vessel monitoring devices (VMS) will not be allowed to go to sea.
In the coming time, Quang Tri province will continue to strengthen propaganda, raise awareness of fishermen; inspect and control the operation of fishing vessels and handle violations.
Functional agencies at the same time strengthen coordination, overcome the shortcomings pointed out through inspection, thereby improving the efficiency of management of seafood exploitation activities and implementing requirements on combating IUU fishing.
