During a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee (NASC), Senior Lieutenant-General Phạm Ngọc Minh, Vice Chief of General Staff of the Việt Nam People’s Army and Vice Chairman of the National Committee for Search and Rescue, raised his concerns over the alarming situation and suggested that the Government should tighten its grip on overfishing as the seafood capacity in the Vietnamese sea is nearing exhaustion.
“We often catch too much seafood in the old days. But now all the sea – Bạch Long Vỹ, Trường Sa or Phú Quốc – was empty,” Minh said. Vietnamese fishermen use all fishing gears, from destructive to electricity or toxic substances, to catch as much as possible. “That’s why now our fishermen have to fish in overseas waters, and get arrested,” he said.
Since the beginning of the year, 16 Vietnamese fishing ships seized by Australia, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and Cambodia for illegal fishing, Minh said.
Minh asked that the amended Law on Fisheries clearly lay out the State’s responsibilities in planning and regulating specific areas allowed for fishing. He also asked authorities to issue fishing quotas to manage the overfishing.
National Assembly National Defence and Security Committee Chairman, Senior Lieutenant-General Võ Trọng Việt, also expressed concern about overfishing, blaming it on lack of exploitation bans to preserve resources. “In other countries, even in China, fishing is banned during breeding season. Any violations are strictly punished,” Việt said. “In Việt Nam, meanwhile, the ban is rather unclear, allowing fishermen to sail to sea for fishing even during the (breeding) season. That’s what led to the fish exhaustion,”
On Tuesday 21st March, The NASC agreed to issue a Governmental decree to improve the performance of the firefighting forces following growing fire risks due to rapid urbanisation. According to the NASC, there were 444,311 incidents including fires, explosions, traffic and labour accidents between 2001 and 2015. At least 177,587 people were killed and 343,340 were injured.
The highest-level legal document regulating the rescue work of the firefighter force is a decision issued by former Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng in 2012. However, it falls short of clearly stating specific responsibilities of organisations and individuals in rescue work, leading to confusion and lack of co-operation between different forces, according to the NASC.
Hong Van
