Thailand, the world’s third largest seafood exporter, has intensified the crackdown on illegal fishing to achieve the sustainability of marine resources.
Starting from 2015, Thailand revised its legislation and legal frameworks and developed a national plan of action to fight illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The country opened the Fisheries Monitoring Center at the Department of Fisheries, requiring all international vessels to be licensed and use a Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) tracking unit, and implemented a Port In-Port Out inspection programme.
The EU removed Thailand from a list of countries failing to tackle illegal fishing this January after finding that the country had addressed significant shortcomings in its billion-dollar fisheries sector through stricter regulation of IUU fishing. Improvements included remote monitoring of fishing at sea and strengthening inspections at port.
