After nearly five years of being imposed the “yellow card” warning by the European Commission, Vietnam’s fisheries still face challenges in removing this barrier.
Speaking in the sixth meeting of the National Steering Board about illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing on September 20, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Phùng Đức Tiến gave his evaluation that Vietnam’s legal framework related to the fight against IUU was relatively complete and expressed the country’s commitment in the development of the fisheries for sustainability, responsibility, and international integration assurance.
However, after nearly five years of being imposed the “yellow card” warning by the European Commission, Vietnam’s fisheries still face challenges in removing this barrier. Four causes are to blame.
Firstly, it is the logbook. Many places use memoirs instead of logbooks because awareness of fishermen about fighting against IUU are not homogeneous.
Secondly, the way 28 coastal provinces and cities tackle violations against IUU fishing is not the same. Deputy Minister Phùng Đức Tiến pointed out that some vessels run to other provinces for docking. Failure in traceability of exploited seafood has made our country “lose points” in EC’s evaluation.
Thirdly, disbursement for the construction of infrastructure of fishing ports is slow, making many fishing port type 1 fail to control the exploited output. Many localities can not determine exactly the longitude and latitude of the exploitation and fishing.
Fourthly, many provinces and cities have not paid proper attention to the fight against IUU.
Under the evaluate by the Directorate of Fisheries, the review, registration and registry of fishing vessels in localities still fail the rules, especially vessels of 6-15m long. Just 44,339/60,419 vessels have been registered, accounting for 73%. Some provinces such as Quảng Trị, Quảng Bình, Quảng Nam, Thừa Thiên Huế, Nam Định, Ninh Bình, Thanh Hóa, Phú Yên, HCM, Trà Vinh, and Quảng Ninh show a low rate. The installation of surveillance system on fishing vessels to supervise the operation of vessels in the ocean and tackle IUU fishing activities is difficult and asynchronous. There are 20 provinces all over the country sending a 24-hour team of watch officers.
The awareness of people in removing the IUU yellow card is not high. When the exploited output of seafood reach 3.92 million tons, reaching the threshold of 3.95 million tons in stockpile of Vietnam, this is really a big problem.
VFM
