Patrolling to inspect fishing boats at sea - Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Alongwith authorities of 28 coastal localities nationwide, relevant agencies and forces,including the Border Guards, have been actively promoting legal popularisation andeducation to raisefishermen's awareness on the fight against the illegal, unreportedand unregulated (IUU) fishing, and the compliancewith regulations regarding their offshore operation.
Law enforcement agencies have been stepping up inspections and imposing strictpenalties on violations by Vietnamese fishing vessels to prevent and put an endto IUU fishing.
According to Thanh Hai Border Guard station in the south-centralcoastal province of Binh Thuan, the unit maintains 24/7 check andmanagement of the vesselmonitoring systems (VMS), thus providing timely assistance fishermen to address technicalissues and take strict actions against violations.
Meanwhile, the force of the northern province of ThaiBinh said during the peak of combating illegal fishing activities atsea, which will extend until later April this year, they continue toprioritise popularisation activities and focus on detecting and strictlyhandling vessel owners who violate IUU fishing regulations, in a bid to swiftly have the “yellow card” warning against Vietnamese seafood lifted by the European Commission (EC).
The Border Guard High Command has implemented concerted measures and plans to review, classify, and closelymanage violating vessels, and fishing boat groups in high risk of violatingforeign water, thus detecting early signs and behaviours of IUU violations to promptlytake measures for preventing and addressing them.
In 2023, the commandcoordinated with local authorities and relevant agencies to disseminateinformation to nearly 460,000 fishermen, and send messages to 2,357 mobilephone subscribers. Furthermore, 26,583 leaflets and 7,095 documents were also distributed.
The force has closely coordinated with relevant agencies such asthe Coast Guards, Navy, and Police, as well as other authorised agencies toadvise local authorities on inspecting and urging the implementation of tasksin combating IUU fishing.
Recently, the command, incollaboration with the Military Industry and Telecoms Group (Viettel),organised training sessions to guide the use of software for managing and controllingfishing vessels under a project implemented by border stations in the 28coastal localities.
Thanks to such efforts, the number of Vietnamese fishing vesselsviolating foreign waters has been gradually decreasing each year./.
