Together with the drastic attendance of levels, industries, localities, forces, the whole political system and people, Nghe An Provincial Border Guard has been synchronously implementing many solutions for fighting against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, making contribution together with the whole country to removing the European Commission’s “yellow card” on Vietnamese seafood.

Nghe An Province has 82 km of coast, stretching through 03 districts (Nghi Loc, Dien Chau, Quynh Luu) and 02 towns (Cua Lo, Hoang Mai), with 34 coastal communes and wards and 76,752 households of 327,527 inhabitants; its ports include Cua Lo, Ben Thuy, Nghi Huong, Hung Hoa and Vissai international port, DKC petroleum port; 02 islands (Hon Ngu and Hon Mat); 06 river mouths and creeks (Lach Con, Lach Quen, Lach Thoi, Lach Van, Cua Lo, Cua Hoi). This province has many advantages for the local people and other areas to conduct their activities of marine economy including the fishing activity in coastal waters. By November 2022, the whole Province had 3,404 fishing boats/16,868 fishermen doing their fishing at sea and 1,116 offshore fishing boats. Due to many fishing boats operating at large seas and the poor awareness of legal obedience of a part of fishermen, difficulties in grasping the situation, monitoring of fishing boats and checking the law enforcement at sea, there have been many shortcomings in the solving sanction of violating fishing boats, so lots of law violations in fishing still remain. The Province had 11, 22, 09 and 20 cases of violation in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively; specifically in the first 6 months of 2023, there were 22 fishing boats which were discovered and punished because of violating the regulations on IUU fishing and trespassing the foreign waters.

Basing on this fact and the grasping and implementing the decisions, directions and plans by the Government and seniors on preventing IUU fishing, directly the Plan No. 277/KH-BĐBP, dated 19/01/2023 and Document No. 758/BĐBP-TM, dated 28/02/2023 by the Border Guard Command on enhancing the task implementation of preventing IUU fishing; Plan No. 121/KH-UBND, dated 01/3/2021 by the Provincial People’s Committee on the implementation of Decision No. 81/QĐ-TTg of the Prime Minister in Nghe An province and the Project on “Strengthening the security and order, making sure the safety for the people and the economic activities of seas and islands in Nghe An province in the period of 2022 - 2026”, the Provincial Border Guard’s Party Committee has issued the resolution leading the implementation of preventing IUU fishing; Plan No. 199/KH-BCH, dated 02/02/2023 on preventing IUU fishing in 2023 and stopping Nghe An’s fishing boats from illegal fishing on foreign waters before 31/3/2023. On that basis, the Provincial Border Guard Command has directed border units to closely coordinate with the Fisheries Sub-Department and the Management Board of fishing ports to attentively implement tasks and solutions for preventing IUU fishing according to Decision No. 81/QĐ-TTg by the Prime Minister on issuing the Action plan of preventing IUU fishing. When fishing at sea, fishermen’s consciousness of law obedience is the direct factor of whether or not the fishing is legal. From that, on closely following the instructions from the seniors and the real situations, recently, the Provincial Border Guard has proactively coordinated with the local party committees and governments and related forces to promote the law dissemination for fishermen under many forms, which has focused on documents such as: the Law of Fisheries 2017, Decree No. 42/2019/NĐ-CP by the Government and other documents on preventing IUU fishing. In the implementation, the Provincial Border Guard Command has directed units to assign party members in border posts who are in charge of households in border areas to propagandise and directly encourage boats owners and ship captains to follow the law when exploiting seafood; guide fishermen to take notes, keep diaries and reports of fishing, maintain the vessel monitoring systems in 15-metre-and-over fishing boats not trespassing foreign waters; publicly announce legally-punished violations in the mass media to make propaganda and warnings on the results of illegal fishing on foreign waters, etc.

The Provincial Border Guard conducts dissemination about IUU fishing

Simultaneously, the Provincial Border Guard has strengthened the management, patrol, inspection and fights against law-breaking behaviours at sea. The main focus was to seriously maintain Decision No. 4968/QyĐ-BĐBP, dated 02/12/2021 by the Border Guard Command on coastal Border posts’ patrolling at sea; examining and controlling vehicles on entry and exit according to Decision No. 3256/QyĐ-BĐBP, dated 08/8/2022 by the Border Guard Command on the border-controlling scales, duties and skills by the coastal border posts. It has also strengthened the inspection, controlling and monitoring of entry-and-exit fishing boats publicly fishing at sea, especially the violations of registration, permissions, degrees and professional certificates; violations of passages, using fishing tools and other activities of fishermen’s not using the vessel monitoring systems. It has inspected and guided the management, usage and balance drawing of sources of budget from the seniors for the prevention of IUU fishing in all units.

In order to increase the effectiveness, the Provincial Border Guard has regularly maintained the sharing of cruise-monitoring information on fishing boats according to Document No. 1777/BTM-QLB, dated 21/7/2020 by the Border Guard Staff on implementing Decree No. 17/CT-TTg, dated 24/6/2021 by the Prime Minister on the interdisciplinary mechanism in exchanging and processing information on preventing IUU fishing. It has proactively coordinated with the Command of the 1^st Coast Guard zone, Fisheries Sub-Department,  and Fisheries Resources Protection, Squadron 38 of Border Guard and the Border Guard in Thanh Hoa and Ha Tinh provinces to steadily seize their fishing boats illegally exploiting seafood on foreign waters, losing the Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) to have suitable inspecting, controlling and solving solutions; directed specialised forces in coastal units to enhance the coordination with functional offices to make basic inspections for boat owners, captains and suspects who have taken fishing boats and fishermen to illegally exploit seafood in foreign waters; made statistics, classifications and closely inspected the boats in “high risk” of violating foreign waters to have timely preventing and solving solutions.

With its drastic and synchronous solutions, since the beginning of 2023, the Provincial Border Guard has made patrol, check and inspection over river mouths, creeks, boat docks and at sea with 283 turns/1,059 cadres and soldiers; entry and exit registration for 20,945 vehicles/100,817 people on entry and exit the river mouths; coordinated with the Fisheries Sub-Department, and Fisheries Resources Protection, Sub-Department of Fisheries Surveillance, departments and agencies to patrol, inspect and control the seafood exploitation in coastal and inshore areas; together with the interdisciplinary inspection team of the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Fisheries Sub-Department,  and Fisheries Resources Protection to check the prevention of IUU fishing in fishing ports; organised 04 phases/04 interdisciplinary teams to check the fishing in the area to prepare for the 4^th inspection by EC; discovered and solved 48/66 vehicles breaking the regulations of fishing, made administrative punishment with the total of 467,500,000 VND; completed the documents and made decisions on administrative punishment for 02/10 vehicles according to the reports of the Border Guard Staff and Coast Guard Command, etc., which have been highly appreciated by the Border Guard Command, local party committees and authorities.

To bring into play the achieved results and improve the quality, effectiveness in fighting against IUU fishing, making contribution to the whole country’s effort to  remove the EC’s IUU “yellow card”, helping fishermen to feel secure in producing, protecting the sovereignty over islands and seas, Nghe An Provincial Party Committee and the Border Guard Command, in coming time, need to focus on leading and directing the following main solutions as follows:

1. Continue to seriously grasp and implement Decision No. 1077/QĐ-TTg, dated 14/9/2022 by the Prime Minister approving the Project of “Preventing the illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing to 2025”; Decision No. 81/QĐ-TTg, dated 13/2/2023 by the Prime Minister on issuing the Action plan of preventing the illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, preparing for the 4^th inspection of the European Commission; Plan No. 121/KH-UBND, dated 01/3/2021 by Nghe An Provincial People’s Committee on implementing Decision No. 81/QĐ-TTg by the Prime Minister in the governed locations.

2. Strengthen the coordination with departments, agencies, related forces and the local party committees and governments to propagandise and improve the awareness for fishermen of complying with regulations in fishing, not trespassing the foreign waters. Closely connect the responsibility of the party members in border posts to their duties of helping families in the coastal border areas and propagandising to improve the fishermen’s awareness of preventing IUU fishing.

3. Advise the local party committees and governments to drastically direct the political system in coastal areas to continuously enhance the propagandising activities, making the changes in fishermen’s awareness of respecting and complying with the Viet Nam’s law and other neighbouring countries’ on fishing and seafood exploitation at sea. Effectively implement the installation, operation and usage of the monitoring systems on fishing boats. Strictly punish the boats not installing the monitoring systems or losing the connection, not having the license and not marking the fishing boats.

4. Continue to closely coordinate with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (Fisheries Sub-Department,  and Fisheries Resources Protection, the Management Board of fishing ports) to effectively organise the interdisciplinary task groups in fishing ports according to the instructions of overcoming the EC’s warnings on preventing IUU and the 2017 Law of Fisheries.

5. Strictly control fishing boats on  entry and exit the ports, firmly disallow them to exit without enough regulated documents and facilities, making sure the safety conditions for people and fishing boats; other related regulations and strictly punish violations in accordance with the law.

Senior Colonel NGUYEN CONG LUC, Commander of the Provincial Border Guard Command