Ahsan Mohamed Program Officer Ministry of fisheries and Agriculture Maldives

 From 1987 we are having “Fisheries Act 5/87” of Maldives.  Under Section 3(1) we have implemented “Fisheries Regulation of Maldives”.  Under section 2 and 3 of the Fishing regulation explained thing are not allow for fishers. Those things were penalized under this regulation.  In this also we mentioned about IUU fishing. We only allows Pole and line fishing for skipjack, hand line for yellow fin and Long line for big eye tuna.

 Under Section 3(1) of fisheries act we do have specific regulation for Long Lining in Maldives.  Under section 25 it clearly states things that are not allowed under this regulation  Under Section 3(1) of fisheries act this act we would have specific regulation for Grouper fishery  Under section 13 it clearly states things that are not allowed under this regulation Our skipjack fishery ware specified as MSC certified fishery.

 All the fisheries regulations were implemented under Ministry of fisheries and agriculture of Maldives.  All the compliance related to fisheries were handled by compliance department.  In this there are penalties for illegal fishing and fishing operations.  All the penalties were clearly stated in the regulations.  some of them were punished by penalizing.

 Those are the world leading association that will work for the sustainable development of fisheries resources in Indian Ocean.  We are also a member of IOTC (Indian Ocean Tuna Commission)  Also a member of EU.  There are mandatory regulation for all the membership countries. We also follows all those regulation.  Under that we develop IUU regulation in Maldives.  All the fishing vessels, fish processing permission were registerd and they must full full there requrment.

 In this we do implement IUU regulation of Maldives.  In this we mandatory certain rules for fishing vessels. They are:  Have valid fishing license  Must have health certificate  Vessel must be registered as fishing vessel.  Should have communication sets in the vessel.  Must have VLD system in the vessel  Companies also have some mandatory requirements. They are:-  Submit catch data daily bases  Fish Processing license  Catch certificate for export

 3 main challenges that face buy the fisherman  Quality of ice is law  They are unable to bring best quality fish to the market.  Price of fish is law  We unable to give a prize for our fishes.  Price depends on the market prize.  Expenses are higher.  Transportation time  Because of no direct transportation to the destination.  These also add cost like  Ice  Packaging materials

 Maldives is member of IOTC (Indian ocean Tuna Commission) since ----  To obey the rules of the commission we do make 2 tracabilitiies. They are:-  Big eye tuna Statistical documents  Catch data

 We have strong tractability procedure for Yellow fin tuna and Long Line Fishing.  In this we can trace from the fist to the consumer. All the records taken and send with the shipment.  Vessel that caught the fish  Where they caught the fish.  Date of the catch.  Temperature in the fish  Name of the company produce  Bach number  All the tests like Histamine, heavy mantels.  For other products we can only Trace very few information's.  Place where the product was produces.  Bach number and date of production

 Strengths  Good log book system (Validation)  Strong legal frame work (licensing regulation/ long line regulation)  Good compliances Mechanism  Vessels that does not comply are penalized ( often a fire based on illegal fish catch/ double the market price)  Strong MCS  Vessel Monitoring System

 Weakness  Manual process ( take time / slow down export process)  A software in the development process  Companies / fisherman’s / processers can entre information and process real time.  Lack of Man power  Inspections are few (Random process)

Harmonization of Traceability mechanisms among countries. Use of technology to minimize time and give confidence to the customers

Thank You Ahsan Mohamed Program Officer