PM Prayut cites 'progress' on illegal fishing despite EC warning

[webfact]

PM cites ‘progress’ on illegal fishing despite EC warning

By The Nation

 

File photo

 

BANGKOK: -- PRIME MINISTER Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday expressed his satisfaction over progress in solving illegal fishing, but the European Commission (EC) has suggested that Thai authorities could do more and hinted that the country will maintain its “yellow card” status for another year.

“We might not be able to finish the job 100 per cent since there are so many problems in the sector, but I think we have made a lot of progress in accordance with the requirement,” Prayut told reporters.

 

An EC delegation was in Thailand from July 1 to 16 to review measures taken by the government to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

 

Agriculture Minister Chatchai Sarikalya said earlier that the EC had suggested Thailand could do more to regulate the fishery industry, such as register fishing trawlers, to meet equilibrium of supply. They raised concerns about the use of illegal workers, illegal and substandard fishing tools, as well as insufficient monitoring systems, he said.

 

“Many issues of concern are relatively new, so we have to study and hire consultant to help us,” Chatchai said. 

 

The EC put Thailand on formal notice of a yellow card in April 2015 for not taking sufficient measures to combat illegal fishing. The commission has sent delegations to Thailand to follow up the work since then, but the actions taken by Thai authorities so far are unlikely to meet conditions for a status upgrade.

 

“We have to get back to first stage for many works,” Prayut said, noting that only 18,000 of an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 boats have been registered.

 

 “We have problems in every aspect, therefore we face slow progress,” he said.

 

The EC might not look back to the cause of the problem, but the government has to tackle it at its root cause, he said. “As we issue new laws and enforce them, there is some resistance from those who have become familiar with illegal fishing, so we need to take time to make them comply with the law,” he said. 

 

One of the world’s biggest fish importers, the European Union has enforced the IUU Regulation since 2010. It allows access to the EU market only to fisheries products that have been certified as legal by the country concerned. 

 

When those countries are unable to certify their products, the Commission starts a process of co-operation and assistance with them to help improve their legal frameworks. The milestones of this process are warnings (yellow cards), followed by green cards if issues are solved and red cards if they aren’t. Red cards lead to a trade ban.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/politics/30321125

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-07-19

[JoePai]

How many years has he tried to solve illegal fishing ?

 

Bottom line he has failed

[yellowboat]

Considering the Shanghai-ing of hundreds men and holding them against their will was something right out of an Ian Flemming novel, It would be difficult not to make some progress.  Given the magnitude of the failure, the EC is right in waiting to be impressed by a mark achievement. 

[robblok]

14 minutes ago, JoePai said:

How many years has he tried to solve illegal fishing ?

 

Bottom line he has failed

if it failed and no progress would have been made they would have had a red card, they are doing an ok job but EU is keeping on pressure to make sure it is completed. They are far from done but effort had been made and progress too. Just listen to the moaning fishermen and you know that things are changing. 

[Cadbury]

29 minutes ago, JoePai said:

How many years has he tried to solve illegal fishing ?

 

Bottom line he has failed

Yes true but I think you should cut the man a little bit of slack. After all he can't be perfect at everything even though he thinks he is.

He is better at some things than others. He is good fixing twerking dancers, footpaths, bicycle tracks, lotteries, preventing elections, censorship, hazardous waste separation and the like. Illegal fishing is not one of his best subjects.

[yellowboat]

23 minutes ago, robblok said:

if it failed and no progress would have been made they would have had a red card, they are doing an ok job but EU is keeping on pressure to make sure it is completed. They are far from done but effort had been made and progress too. Just listen to the moaning fishermen and you know that things are changing. 

Before they were doing nothing.  In fact, on Yahoo today they talked about the Thai investigator who left in the middle of the night for Australia, because of the people he was investigating.  The feeling is the junta is probably happy he is gone.  The fact Thailand does not have a red card is that trade needs to continue. 

[robblok]

1 minute ago, yellowboat said:

Before they were doing nothing.  In fact, on Yahoo today they talked about the Thai investigator who left in the middle of the night for Australia, because of the people he was investigating.  The feeling is the junta is probably happy he is gone.  The fact Thailand does not have a red card is that trade needs to continue. 

That is your opinion.. mine differs and I base it on the moans in articles from the fishermen. IF nothing was happening then they would not moan so much. Also there was an article about fish stocks getting better. So things are changing.. slowly that is. I am now not talking about the human trafficing part but about the fishing restrictions. 

[seajae]

they brought all the right laws in to stop it but never enforced them because everyone complained it was too hard/expensive so they backed off and allowed them to continue doing them. Then of course you have those that threaten the inspectors if they try to push the law and the govt refuses to back them up or send in extra help to stop it. The country will never change as long as threats etc stop laws from being enforced, one of Thailands biggest problems in lots of areas, not just fishing

[alant]

57 minutes ago, robblok said:

if it failed and no progress would have been made they would have had a red card, they are doing an ok job but EU is keeping on pressure to make sure it is completed. They are far from done but effort had been made and progress too. Just listen to the moaning fishermen and you know that things are changing. 

If the EU had actually taken some action after years and years of "must try harder the yellow card stays" then perhaps, just perhaps the actions required would have been actioned.

Instead the EU, having failed utterly to manage their own fisheries and fishing industry continue to allow its suppliers the ability to continue just as long as the supplies keep coming at the right price.

[lvr181]

" We have problems in every aspect, therefore we face slow progress,” he said."  Well Mr PM, where there is a will there is a way. Same same with crime, corruption and a two tier justice system!  ACTION speaks louder than words! As Nike says "Just do it". Stop with the 'feudal' thinking and progress.

[Srikcir]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

only 18,000 of an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 boats have been registered.

The 18,000 registrations^* is a success whereas before it was zero. And those boats as part of their registration required GPS tracking system that was a cost to the ship owners. Another success. As a prelude to registrations the government virtually started from scratch with new regulations, laws and organizational oversight in 2015, so that reaching 18,000 registrations to date is a great accomplishment.

 

 ^*Note - as of November 30, 2016 the Thai Commercial Fishing Fleet consisted of 10,974 registered vessels. 

http://www.thaiembassy.org/bucharest/contents/files/news-20170125-163408-373852.pdf

An increase of 8,000 registrations since then is somewhat suspicious and maybe another factor in the EU review.

 

But the number of unregistered ships (which the government doesn't seem to know exactly how many) are still substantial and that merits continuation of a yellow card - that's fair. I believe that the major reason for the still unregistered ships was that Prayut granted an extension of unspecified time for registration while the ships continued to operate - causing his own shortcoming:

9 hours ago, webfact said:

“As we issue new laws and enforce them, there is some resistance from those who have become familiar with illegal fishing, so we need to take time to make them comply with the law,”

Maybe for this reason Prayut seems unusually pragmatic with the incomplete registration program rather than blaming the EU for being political.

[Ulic]

Unfortunately the only way to make substantive change in a timely manor is to hand out

a red card. Then and only then when the bottom line is affected will real changes be implemented.

This yellow card nonsense is just licking the can down the road. Cosmetic changes unenforced.