Monitoring of fishing vessels has started in Ukraine

Since the beginning of June, a special information and telecommunication system records the location of fishing vessels during commercial fishing within and outside of Ukraine.

The purpose of monitoring is to provide clear control over the location of vessels, which is necessary for the protection of aquatic biological resources and their rational use, the Ministry of Agricultural Policy reported.

As Deputy Minister of Agricultural Policy Vitalyi Holovnia noted, the launch of a new monitoring system will be another important puzzle in the process of reforming the fishing industry. Online monitoring of fishing vessels makes it possible to “reduce the shameful practice of illegal fishing, as well as reduce corruption risks in industrial fishing of aquatic biological resources.”

Control of fishing vessels will help to reduce the share of illegal fish products on the market, which is currently a significant competition for legally harvested aquatic biological resources. At the same time, such monitoring will make it possible to form an objective evidence base on illegal fishing and increase the effectiveness of measures to protect aquatic biological resources.

Read also: “E-fish”: how the new reform will affect the owners of fishing vessels