Minister of Fisheries commissions VMS The Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Mr Bernhard Esau officially commissioned the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) last week Friday at the Ministry of Fisheries headquarters in Walvis Bay. The VMS is a monitoring, control and surveillance system which the fisheries ministry is using to monitor the activities of licensed fishing vessels. “Although the system was already acquired as well as installed in 2002, the system was unable to perform satisfactory in accordance with the acceptable minimum requirements” explained the Minister. This situation led to the Ministry exploring the possibility to upgrade the VMS to conform to acceptable international standards. According to the Minister his ministry had to spend N$1.3 million in the process of upgrading the Namibian VMS. Work on the system commenced in 2002 and it became operational in July last year and is now able to monitor the activities of the licensed fishing vessels. “ The ministry is since in a position to monitor 50% of our licensed fishing fleet, with this upgrade it is planned that Namibia should be in the position to monitor 100% of her licensed fishing vessels, excluding those exempted by the end of this year” said the Minister. This system is said to monitor the location of fishing vessels through an Automatic Location Communicator (ALC), it then analyses the information and presents it to the VMS Centre on land, including the surveillance and enforcement per-sonnel in order for them to process the information and take further action if necessary. The ALC also records the accurate vessel location and current time, through means of a global positioning system (GPS). All the ALCs that were installed are tamper proof in order to prevent interference with the system from any unauthorised persons. The VMS was installed and applied in accordance with the Namibian fisheries legislation provision of 2000, the VMS Regulations of 2005, the Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), the 200 meter depth restrictions as well as Conservation measures and the conditions attac-hed to fishing quotas. The Vessel Monitoring System is also said to be a useful tool for finding vessels near a ship in distress, if that particular ship is carrying an ALC the last reported position may be used to narrow the search area. The Minister in this regard indicated that there are still some right holders/ operators that have not to date installed ALCs on board their vessels and he urged the fishing industry to obey and install this piece of equipment on board their licensed fishing vessels. In addition the Minister also said Namibia is indeed a trendsetter in Southern Africa, as far as conforming to international standards. With regard to VMS the Minister is adamant his ministry will continue maintaining this system in the interest of their sought after Marine resources to ensure sustainability for generations to come.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 08:47:15 +0000
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