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CEBU CITY, May 3 (PIA) -- The government’s campaign against illegal fishing is now on “high gear,” an official of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) - 7 informed recently.
BFAR-7 Assistant Regional Director Allan Poquita, in an interview, said Bantay Dagat Task Forces in the region are now equipped with state-of-the-art equipment that would aid them in patrolling the coastal waters of their own localities to drive away illegal fishers.
“The various Bantay Dagat Forces in Central Visayas have intensified their own campaign against illegal fishing,” Poquita bared.
Poquita revealed that each Bantay Dagat Task Force in the different towns in the region now possessed global positioning satellites (GPS) which can help them accomplish more effective arrests.
Task force members and local fish warden groups earlier aired complaints that commercial fishers engaged in poaching within the 15-kilometer area from the shorelines that are classified as municipal waters can easily get away by claiming that they are fishing outside the specified area and thus avoiding arrest.
According to the fishery bureau official, he understood well the plight of those who are enforcing the fishery laws because under the old system, where one has to rely with his own eyes to come up with an estimate of the distance from the location of the suspected illegal fishers to the shorelines, the distance ca be a contentious issue.
But with the GPS and other modern equipment, law enforcers can now support their claim with certainty, Poquita asserted.
He further informed that BFAR is likewise set to distribute seven patrol boats equipped with outboard engines that can reach a maximum speed of 20 knots to selected task forces in the region.
The equipment, he said, will greatly help the government’s campaign against illegal fishing in the region.
In recent years however, illegal fishing activities in its most destructive forms such as dynamite fishing and the use of cyanide have been greatly minimized, according to Poquita.
Poquita said such forms of illegal fishing are now confined in the remote areas in the region.
What concerned the law enforcers now are the illegal poachers who are fishing within the specified municipal waters, this is said. (FCR/ECD/PIA 7-Cebu)
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