Published on: Sunday, November 22, 2009 |
Kota Kinabalu: The State Fisheries Director should be held accountable if there is an element of negligence in monitoring illegal activities by locally-registered Vietnamese fishing boats.
Consumer activist Datuk Patrick Sindu said the Director must explain to the public on his department's repeated failure in ensuring that marine life in Sabah waters are protected.
He was commenting on the arrest of Vietnamese nationals on board a locally-registered Vietnamese fishing boat at the Sugud Island Marine Conservation Area (Simca) in Beluran, last Saturday.
District Reef Guardian (DRG) in Sandakan, together with Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) personnel intercepted the fishing vessel and found five adult turtles, 10 sharks, including guitar sharks, leopard sharks and black tip sharks. Four of the turtles and female leopard sharks were found bearing eggs.
Besides the 7km long bottom gill net, also confiscated was another 3.5km gill net from the fishing boat.
Patrick noted that the Vietnamese fishing crew are bold in continuing to commit such illegal activities "because they know the State Fisheries Director is not serious in putting a stop to these activities."
"These foreign fishing crew go on breaking our laws because they know it will go unnoticed by the Fisheries Department," he said, adding "the Department should be blamed."
Patrick said these locally registered Vietnamese fishing boats had violated the conditions of their deep-sea fishing licences in Sabah waters many times since early this year.
"Yet there seems reluctance on the part of the Fisheries Department to take drastic action against the owners or operators of these vessels."
He pointed out that the fishing licence issued to them only allows catching fish 30 nautical miles from the shore using bottom line fishing only.
"Why were such conditions not imposed by the Department?".
On March 17 this year marine police from Kota Kinabalu seized these same "locally registered" Vietnamese fishing vessels casting their nets around Pulau Tiga near Kuala Penyu.
On January this year Daily Express also highlighted a complaint by local fishermen from Pulau Mantanani that Vietnamese fishing boats and crew were often seen diving and catching fish using spear.
