Chinanews.com, August 28. According to the website of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the General Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs recently issued a notice on the cleanup and rectification of illegal fishing gear in 2020. The notice stated that it is necessary to highlight the key points and severely crack down on the "extreme household network." Investigations should be conducted on a port-by-port, village-by-village, and ship-by-ship basis. Any illegal loading or use of illegal gears shall be seized and severely punished according to law; if illegal gears are found to be produced or sold, they shall be dealt with in accordance with the law.
The notice starts from three aspects: focusing on cracking down on serious violations, doing special enforcement actions, and ensuring the effectiveness of clean-up and rectification work, and proposes 10 measures, as follows:
Comprehensive investigation, heavy strikes, focusing on severe illegal acts
According to the notice, in recent years, all parts of the country have seriously organized and carried out the "net cleaning" operation of illegal fishing gear and achieved remarkable results. According to statistics, since 2015, more than 1.55 million banned fishing gears such as "Junhu Nets" have been cleaned up across the country's coastal areas, and the frequent occurrence of illegal cases has been initially curbed. On the basis of the results of the previous work, all localities should highlight the key points and strike hard to redeploy, re-inspect, and re-clean up the clean-up and remediation actions to ensure that the three-year "net-cleaning" mission objectives are achieved on schedule.
—— Highlight the key points and severely crack down on the "extreme household network." The focus of this year's crackdown is on trawling and spreading nets using dense mesh bags or net bags with lining nets and other net mesh sizes that seriously deviate from the regulations, the resources are extremely destructive, the social impact is bad, and the people hate illegal fishing gear. Investigations should be conducted on a port-by-port, village-by-village, and ship-by-ship basis. Any illegal loading or use of illegal gears shall be seized and severely punished according to law; if illegal gears are found to be produced or sold, they shall be dealt with in accordance with the law. For serious violations that have repeatedly committed crimes, have extremely bad social impact, and involve a large amount of money, or have circumstances such as evasion, resistance to law enforcement, concealment, and shielding of illegal activities, they must be resolutely punished in accordance with the law and exposed publicly, so that they can be found, investigated and dealt with. Announce it together and deter one side.
——Persevere, thoroughly clean up prohibited fishing gear. In recent years, there have been phenomena such as repeated prohibitions and resurgence of banned fishing gear in individual areas. The production, sale, use, and illegal catch trade and processing of fishing gear have been banned and the black interest chain has been cut and unbroken. Highly concerned, adversely affecting the management of local nets. All localities should attach great importance to this, continue to maintain a high-pressure situation, and severely crack down on illegal activities such as the use of electric fish, poisoned fish, fried fish and other prohibited methods, and drag pumps to suck and stab and stab the banned fishing gear announced by countries and localities. Anyone suspected of committing a crime shall be handed over to the judicial organs for investigation of criminal responsibility in a timely manner.
-Rising to the difficulties and curbing the trend of frequent violations. The implementation of the minimum mesh size system for permitted fishing gear and transitional fishing gear for marine fishing is an important measure to implement the relevant arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council to strengthen the protection of marine fishery resources, and is an important indicator of standardized management of fishing gear. Since 2013, the supervisors of fishery departments at all levels have conscientiously implemented the work requirements of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and extensively carried out law enforcement inspections of mesh sizes. The trend of frequent violations of laws and regulations has been curbed to a certain extent. However, due to the continued decline of fishery resources and driven by interests, mesh size non-compliance still exists in large numbers, and it is even common in some places. Fishery departments at all levels should continue to exert the spirit of Chinese fishery administration of "particularly able to endure hardships, special ability to fight, special ability to contribute, and special accomplishment", insist on strengthening daily supervision and not relaxing, overcoming difficulties, facing difficulties, and resolving violations of laws and regulations as soon as possible An unfavorable situation with frequent occurrences.
Strictly enforce the law, strengthen publicity and education, and earnestly carry out special law enforcement actions
The notice pointed out that at the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued the "China Fishery Policy Liangjian 2020 Series Special Law Enforcement Action Plan", and deployed and carried out special law enforcement actions to clean up and ban the "extreme household network" and special law enforcement actions for comprehensive management of the Bohai Sea. In accordance with the requirements of the document, all localities should increase law enforcement, strengthen departmental collaboration, strengthen publicity and education, and effectively carry out various law enforcement activities.
——Persevere and resolutely fight the tough battle in Bohai. According to the requirements of the Action Plan for Tackling Tough Battles in the Comprehensive Management of the Bohai Sea, the three provinces and one city in the Bohai Rim region shall continue to organize special clean-up and rectification actions for illegal fishing gear, and resolutely investigate and punish the use of illegal fishing gear in violation of the Regulations on the Conservation of Bohai Sea Biological Resources. Conduct a thorough investigation of trawlers within the jurisdiction, focus on key sea areas and key periods, increase the frequency of cruise inspections, increase law enforcement investigations, and ensure the effects of special cleanup and remediation actions.
——Departmental linkage to strengthen the supervision of nets in multiple links. Agriculture and rural areas, fishery administration, and port supervision departments at all levels must form a joint effort within the system to strengthen law enforcement inspections on fishing boats, fishing ports, and fishery production enterprises. It is necessary to cooperate with market supervision and other departments to strengthen law enforcement and supervision of fishing gear production and sales enterprises and fishing catch processing enterprises, and cut off the circulation channels of illegal fishing gear and illegal catches from the source. It is necessary to cooperate with maritime affairs, maritime police, public security and other departments to carry out joint law enforcement, improve the connection mechanism of executions, and give full play to the joint efforts of the departments. It is necessary to give full play to the role of industry associations, fisheries cooperatives and other non-governmental organizations, guide enterprises and fishermen to produce, operate, and use compliant fishing gear, and enhance industry self-discipline.
——Innovate mechanisms and strengthen publicity and education in all directions. Adhere to the combination of positive publicity and warning education, publicity training and case-based statements, traditional media and online platforms, and strengthen the publicity of fishing gear from multiple angles and in all directions. Actively organize and carry out public disposal activities for illegal fishing gear, explore and promote the public judgment of typical illegal cases, establish and improve the public release mechanism of key cases, and strengthen the warning effect. Encourage the promotion of electronic fishing gear atlas, distribution of illegal fishing gear atlases, posting of fishermen’s understanding papers, and organization of fishermen’s training courses to strengthen the publicity of fishing gear knowledge. Fishery departments at all levels and relevant industry associations should further strengthen the publicity of the law for fishing gear production and sales enterprises, combine law enforcement with education, improve the ideological understanding of relevant enterprises, and reduce violations of laws and regulations.
Strengthen the organization, strengthen the guarantee, and ensure the effect of the clean-up and rectification work
The current critical period for the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the ban on catching and retreating in the Yangtze River Basin, and flood prevention and flood prevention. The fishery authorities at all levels must do a good job in epidemic prevention and control, ban on catching and retreat, and flood prevention and flood prevention work, while adhering to problem-oriented and Goal-oriented, highlight key areas and key links, strengthen organizational leadership, innovate working methods, and ensure the effectiveness of clean-up and remediation work.
——Strengthen organization and leadership. All localities should fully understand the importance of cleaning up and rectifying illegal fishing gear, improve their ideological understanding, strengthen organizational guarantees, strengthen deployment guidance, and improve the assessment system. It is necessary to actively promote the inclusion of clean-up and rectification work into the scope of the performance evaluation of the local party committee and government, clarify the division of labor, implement responsibilities, and promote the implementation and implementation of clean-up and rectification work. It is necessary to strengthen supervision and inspection, strengthen departmental coordination, organize and carry out special law enforcement, joint law enforcement and cross law enforcement operations in a timely manner to ensure that the "net clearing" operation achieves practical results.
——Innovative working methods. For the seized illegal fishing gear, a comprehensive management file shall be established, and unified disposal shall be carried out in accordance with the principle of "verification and irreversibility" through fixed-point scrapping and centralized destruction. To improve the designated scrapping and destruction procedures, it is necessary to strictly follow the environmental protection requirements, do a good job of harmless treatment, avoid new harm to the environment, and ensure that the treatment is in place. Encourage the donation of seized fishing gear to relevant scientific research units and related enterprises for scientific research and production experiments in the recycling and utilization of waste fishing gear, and to promote technological progress in the recycling and utilization of waste fishing gear. Industry associations and organizations such as the China Fishing Vessels, Fishing Machinery and Fishing Gear Association shall assist in the confiscated fishing gear donation and other related work.
——Regulate the identification of fishing gear. In order to adapt to the new tasks of fishing vessel and fishing port management reform and meet the actual needs of fishing gear identification work in various regions, in May this year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs organized coastal regions to update the "Recommended List of Fishing Gear Identification Units in Various Regions" announced in 2018. After review and recommendation by various regions, a total of 31 units from 11 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) were included in the "Recommended List of Fishing Gear Appraisal Units (2020)" (see attachment). All localities should strengthen guidance and supervision, and urge relevant units to carry out fishing gear identification work in accordance with laws and regulations and scientific standards.
——Do a summary report. All localities should strengthen information collection, sorting, statistics, and reporting in the "Net Cleanup" campaign. Real-time accurate statistics and timely retention of relevant information such as the number of nets involved in the clean-up and rectification operations, fishing boat inspections, law enforcement personnel, law enforcement frequency, and illegal cases.