Call to get tough with Vietnamese ‘reef robbers’

PACIFIC – The Forum Fisheries Agency is urging people to stop referring to Vietnamese fishing boats poaching coastal reefs across the region as “blue boats” and instead call them “reef robbers”.

The call comes after the latest arrest, on Sunday, of three of the vessels in Solomon Islands southernmost Rennell and Bellona province.

FFA director general James Movick said the operation to capture the boats was a great example of regional and multi-agency co-operation involving local communities and authorities with aerial support provided by the French.

The detained boats and their 43 crew arrived in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara on Tuesday morning where police and fisheries officers are conducting an investigation into their activities.

However, Movick said the only way to bring an end to their activities was for Vietnam to stop denying their existence.

“Let’s not call them ‘blue boats’ any more I think we do need to name these boats. These are ‘Vietnamese reef robbers’.

“Until, and unless, the government of Vietnam is able to demonstrate and accept responsibility or demonstrate to the world that these are not primarily Vietnamese boats I think we need to bring every effort directed to their assuming responsibility.”

The FFA’s core mandate is for the surveillance, monitoring and management of the Pacific Tuna Fisheries but the encroachment of the Vietnamese boats in the last few years has led to a call for this mandate to be extended to assist Pacific countries in the surveillance of their coastal fisheries as well. - RNZI