Tien Giang (VNA)♕ – The Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang is making every effort to protect aquatic resources in association with the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Tien Giang, located in the downstream of Tien River, has a coastline of 21 km, adjacent to large estuaries. The traditional fishery industry has developed strongly, creating jobs for more than 10,000 locals, and reaching an output of between 120,000 and 130,000 tonnes of seafood of all kinds annually. The fight against IUU fishing in the locality has seen progress. It has considered this one of the key tasks to help the fishery industry achieve sustainable development and integration. Tien Giang has stepped up this combat by setting up an IUU fishing steering committee, intensifying dissemination to raise fishermen’s awareness, installing and operating vessel monitoring equipment for offshore fishing ships, and closely inspecting and monitoring fishermen’s compliance with law. In 2021, the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and relevant sectors and localities have organised 36 communication campaigns, attracting the participation of thousands of fishermen and ship owners and providing them with 1,080 documents to popularise guidelines, policies, directives and regulations on combating IUU fishing in the province. To date, all fishing vessels in the province have been equipped with monitoring devices. Since 2020, the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has conducted dozens of specialised inspections, checking 1,484 fishing vessels. Thereby, it made 33 records of administrative violations with a total fine of 250.5 million VND (10,900 USD) against 33 individuals who committed administrative violations related to IUU fishing. In 2021, the provincial People's Committee also issued a decision on administrative violations. Accordingly, a fine of 1.8 billion VND is imposed on a private enterprises with two ships seized for violating foreign waters. Thanks to these drastic measures, the fight against IUU fishing in the province has made positive changes. The number of fishing boats in the province that are seized by foreign countries has decreased remarkably, from 12 in 2017 to only one in 2021. During January-October, the province’s output of aquatic products reached over 240,800 tonnes, equivalent to 24.08 percent of the yearly target, of which 126,000 tonnes were caught offshore. The province is striving to catch over 170,000 tonnes of aquatic products this year./.