Workshop on Community Practice under the Asia Pacific Fisheries Improvement Project (FIP) (in Bali, Indonesia from October 15 – 17, 2019) more than 100 community practitioners gathered to conduct FIPs from across the Asia Pacific region to share lessons learned and experiences. The challenges and challenges of achieving the ultimate goal are to improve the impact and effectiveness of FIP projects in the region. Participants of the conference include stakeholders currently participating in FIP or planning to participate in FIP in the region (civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations, government, industry, fishermen and scientific research organizations).

The workshop aims to:

• Sharing lessons learned, experiences and challenges of community practitioners on FIP implementation in the Asia Pacific region.

• Enhancing cooperation among FIP practitioners by building and strengthening the relationships between organizations participating in FIP.

• Maintain a community of practice by creating a forum for FIP project implementers to participate, exchange information and learn.

Community practice is a group of people who share an interest or passion for a job they do and learn how to do it better when they interact regularly.

Ms. Than Thi Hien – Deputy Director representing MCD exchanged, shared and learned experiences from partners in FIP area, presented the content of the discussion under theme 5: “Opportunities and challenges, proposing to improve small-scale fishing (tuna) in Binh Dinh”.

                                    Ms. Than Thi Hien presenting at the Workshop.

Binh Dinh is one of five provinces and cities in the South Central Coast region, located in the key economic region of Central Vietnam, with abundant labor force involved in tuna fisheries with 20,000 employees, of which Great are people with experience going to the beach. Currently, the total value of tuna exports has reached 30 million USD / year, the province’s seafood industry is expected to meet the strict quarantine requirements of major markets such as the US, EU, Japan …

This great opportunity brings many challenges for the coastal community here because the knowledge of fishermen is still limited, the catch rate is unstable and the quality, product value is not high, compliance Sustainable fishing regulations and enforcement of product traceability needs improvement.

Representatives of MCD and Aquaculture Department of Binh Dinh province discussed and proposed solutions and recommendations: For small-scale fishing communities, it is necessary to improve their sustainable and environmentally friendly fishing capacity, minimize artisanal fishing (including sharks and sea turtles); practice logging (converted from paper form into electronic documents) for easy tracking and archiving over time; comply with the regulations on granting fishing licenses according to the 2017 Fisheries Law quota; Monitoring fishing vessels’ journeys to confirm the fishing origin is legal (CoC) and businesses associated with ship owners and purchasing establishments to trace the origin, branding products, practice responsibilities society.

MCD, with the role of supporting technical capacity, promoting supply chain linkages for FIP practice and reducing IUU (traceability, VMS data reporting) coordination between parties / cooperation networks. 

                                                Group discussion at the Workshop.

The workshop was a success, MCD shared its experiences and had the opportunity to cooperate with other organizations in the region under the Asia Pacific Fisheries Improvement Project (FIP).