Illustrative image. (Photo: VNA) Kien Giang (VNA) – The Mekong Delta province ofKien Giang is stepping up communications work and strictly dealing withviolations relating to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Lam MinhThanh, who is also head of the provincial Steering Committee on IUU, requestedthe Department of Information and Communications to coordinate with local media agencies and relevant sectors to deploy communication activities about theprovince's efforts and drastic measures against IUU fishing.
Dissemination campaigns and training sessions should bestrengthened to raise awareness of vessel owners and captains about this work, contributingto the overall efforts to have the European Commission’s "yellow card" againstVietnamese seafood removed.
More than 120 vessel owners havesigned commitments to not violating foreign waters after being persuaded.
Departments, agencies and localities in the province have organised morethan 400 dissemination activities reaching nearly 30,000 fishermen, vessel owners,captains and distributed 22,766 leaflets on combating IUU fishing,thereby contributing to enhancing awareness among fishermen, preventing andreducing the number of fishing boats infringing on foreign waters.
Since the beginning of this year, no local fishing vessels have been found infringing foreign waters.
Kien Giang has established an informationchannel to manage local fishing vessels, keeping close supervision on the number of vessels; thosewhose registration and licenses have expired as well as those that have not yetinstalled vessel monitoring system (VMS).
According to the provincial Steering Committee on IUU, KienGiang is determined to strictly handle vessels withoutcertificates that prove their seaworthiness (vessels with 3 Nos) and guide vesselowner on registration procedures and update their fishing data into theNational Fisheries Database. The functional agencies monitor all fishingvessels operating at sea through VMS, and strictly deal with violation relatingto connection loss.
Kien Giang has a 200km coastline, 143 small and large islands, and a sea area ofmore than 63,000 sq. km. According to the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, 95.5% of the local fishing vessels have been licensed and 99.3% have installed VMS./.
