Hanoi: Vietnamese fishing vessels’ infringements of foreign waters have gradually decreased over the past years, which is the clearest demonstration of the border guard and other forces’ moves to fight illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, an official has said.
Notably, violations of the waters of Pacific Islands nations such as Australia, Palau, New Caledonia, and Papua New Guinea have been eradicated since 2018, noted Col. Vu Van Hung, Deputy Chief of the Staff of the Border Guard High Command, in a recent interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency.
He said that placing importance on the IUU fishing combat, the High Command has seriously followed the directions given by the Party Central Committee, the Government, and the Ministry of National Defence while issuing a number of documents on concerted measures against IUU fishing. In particular, it launched a peak crackdown on IUU fishing through this April before the European Commission (EC) comes to Vietnam for the fifth inspection over the
issue.
During the campaign, it has been coordinating with the Party committees of coastal localities to enhance the leadership and directions over the work, increase personnel and vehicles for key border guard posts, and set up teams for patrolling islands, river mouths, estuaries where many unregistered and unlicensed fishing vessels or those without vessel monitoring systems (VMS) are often concentrated in to ensure all vessels operating at sea are eligible.
Another focal task the High Command has been performing is to work with local forces and administrations to boost communications and law dissemination to raise fishermen’s awareness, classify and make dossiers for strictly managing violating vessels and high-risk ones, and early detecting IUU practices to take timely counter-measures, Hung went on.
Besides, he added, it has maintained communication channels with other forces and localities in the IUU fishing combat.
To prevent and put an end to vessels’ infringement of foreign waters, the High Comma
nd will maintain close coordination with relevant forces and local authorities to strongly implement the Prime Minister and the Defence Ministry’s directions on urgent solutions to fight IUU fishing and lift the EC’s ‘yellow card’ warning.
It will effectively use the VMS system to monitor all fishing vessels at sea, detect any case of VMS connection rule violations, and demand the vessels going beyond the maritime boundary return to the Vietnamese waters in a timely manner.
Another important task is to order border guard units coordinate with local agriculture and fisheries authorities to make proper preparations for working sessions with the EC delegation, according to the official.
Vietnam has been working hard to carry out the EC’s recommendations about IUU fishing prevention and control, towards the goal of having the EC’s yellow card lifted.
The EC issued a ‘yellow card’ warning for Vietnam in this regard in 2017. The “yellow card” is followed by a “green card” if the problem is resolved or a “red ca
rd” if it is not. A ‘red card’ may lead to a ban on aquatic exports to the EU./.
Source: Vietnam News Agency