A Vietnamese fishing boat (Photo: VNA) Ben Tre (VNA) – The number of fishing vessels of the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre committing illegal fishing in foreign waters in the first six months of 2021 fell 52.4 percent year-on-year, according to the provincial steering committee for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing prevention (Steering Committee 689).
The local authorities have punished eight out of 12 owners of fishing vessels violating foreign waters in accordance with Decree 42/2019/ND-CP on stipulating penalties for administrative violations in the fisheries sector with a total fine of 6.6 billion VND (over 286,000 USD).
In the coming time, the province will continue to drastically implement solutions to combat IUU fishing, in order to remove the European Commission (EC)’s yellow card warning.
Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Minh Canh, who is also head of Steering Committee 689, said special attention will be paid to strengthening supervision over fishing vessels operating offshore through monitoring systems, and resolutely sanctioning fishing boats which violate regulations on fishing boundaries and those with no cruise monitoring devices.
The local authorities will also focus on promoting patrolling activities and closely inspecting ships entering and leaving ports.
Communication campaigns have been promoted in coastal localities to raise public awareness of IUU fishing prevention, he said.
According to Doan Van Danh, Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the observance of legal regulations by offshore fishing vessel owners has witnessed positive changes.
The dissemination of laws, especially the Law on Fisheries 2017 and related documents, have been implemented regularly, contributing to raising the awareness of fishing ships’ owners, he said./.
