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Trawling net users branded exterminators

KIEN GIANG — Residents of Kien Giang Province labelled fishermen using trawling nets exterminators, because of the destruction to marine supply and equipment left in their wake.

The director of Kien Giang Fisheries Department’s Personnel and Administrative Division, Nguyen Lam Son, said 120 fishing boats in the Province have installed trawling nets pulled by powerful motors to increase their profits. Son said the trawling fisherman also interfere with more traditional fishing methods, like drift nets.

Son said the Ministry of Fisheries was aware of Kien Giang’s problem, but because it had no regulations concerning trawling use.

Son said the province would soon take concrete measures to resolve the matter.

An official at Kien Giang’s Aquacultural Protection Department said the Province had banned 90-plus horsepower engines and trawling nets from coastal areas less than 30m deep. But because more fish live in shallow waters, he said, trawlers had disregarded the provincial decree.

The deputy chief inspector of Kien Giang Aquaculture Resource Protection Department, Do Thanh Mang, said his department had regularly patrols the coast and fined fisherman for violating the aquaculture conservation regulations. He said 80 per cent of the offenders had been trawlers working in no-fishing zones, or owned nets in violation of the standards.

Son said many violators considered the maximum fine of VND5 million as an operating cost easily compensated by their profits.

Veteran drift-net users appealed to the provincial authorities to intervene and protect their fishing businesses.

"The trawlers destroyed my fishing net before I could make back what I paid for it," said fisherman Nguyen Van Mui, who spent nearly VND10 million on a drift net and only used it twice.

Mui said because the trawling boat sailed at night without lights, he couldn’t see it coming. Son suspected some fishermen intentionally keep their lights off to evade authorities.

Provincial authorities also consider the environmental effects of trawling. Kien Giang People’s Committee chairman, Tran Ngoc Suong, said the trawling fisherman undermine the Province’s efforts to rehabilitate coastal environments.

A senior official at the Kien Giang Fisheries Department suggested a coastal conservation zone be established forbidding all trawler and drift net user to protect the fragile aquaculture.

Provincial authorities will meet soon to reassess their regulations, Son said. —VNS