Controlling IUU, connecting consumption between fishermen and purchasing establishments

The delegation of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has just had a working session with Binh Dinh Fisheries Sub-Department, Binh Dinh Fishing Port Management Board, Binh Dinh Seafood Joint Stock Company and other enterprises. seafood processing and export in the area on the commitment to combat IUU fishing violations.

At the dialogue session with the topic "Controlling IUU and connecting fishermen with purchasing establishments, businesses and localities", VASEP side grasped the reality of problems of the exploited seafood chain in the anti-fishing process. IUU.

Since then, VASEP has provided support plans and recommendations to localities and businesses in the linkage chain, and at the same time, recommended state management agencies to have effective solutions to soon overcome the situation of illegal exploitation. violating IUU, regaining the prestige and position of Vietnam's caught seafood with the EU market.

According to Binh Dinh Fisheries Sub-Department, the province has made many efforts to combat IUU fishing, but there are still many shortcomings. For example, the captain of a fishing boat keeps a log of fishing with many errors; location and time information in the fishing log compared with the tracking data of the fishing vessel's journey did not match.

In addition, the certification of aquatic materials exploited from time to total volume is still warped and has not yet named each species.

Binh Dinh Fisheries Sub-Department also does not have specialized software to serve the management and control of the volume of raw materials in the process of certifying and certifying the origin of exploited aquatic products. The solution in CC certification, Binh Dinh Fisheries Sub-Department has to use Excel software to monitor and control the volume of raw materials of fishing vessels, so it is not really scientific.

The problem of fishing vessels violating foreign waters has not ended, although Binh Dinh has drastically prevented it. In the first 5 months of 2022, Binh Dinh has 5 fishing boats of Phu Cat district, of which 2 ships in Cat Minh commune and 3 ships in Cat Tien commune that violated Malaysian waters were seized.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Sac, Vice President of VASEP Association, if Vietnam still has a fishing vessel that violates IUU, not only will the "yellow card" not be removed, but Vietnam's caught seafood is also at risk of being attached. "Red card".

If Vietnam gets a "red card", caught seafood will not be able to export, the first affected objects are fishermen and the activities of seafood processing enterprises. The life of fishermen and their families will be dark because of the sea profession. One fisherman works with 3-4 people in his family to live on that fisherman's income, seafood processing enterprises do not have raw materials. for processing and output is also turned off.

In order to avoid this situation, functional levels and local authorities need to strengthen propaganda so that fishermen understand that they should not fish in violation of IUU anymore, it is also to protect their own lives. ", Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Sac shared.

According to Mr. Tran Van Phuc, Director of Binh Dinh Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the coming time, this province will continue to propagate directly to ship owners and captains, especially ships that often move fishing grounds. often operate in the southern provinces, rarely bring ships to the locality, because this is a group of fishing vessels with high risk of violating foreign waters.

In addition, the province also builds a coordination mechanism between Binh Dinh People's Committee and southern provinces, where Binh Dinh fishing boats often dock and anchor, in order to strengthen management of local fishing vessels operating. regularly in the area outside the province, promptly handle fishing vessels with IUU fishing violations.