The
SOCSKSARGEN Federation of Fishing and Allied Industries, Inc. (SFFAII), in
partnership with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR),
organized a training activity dedicated for the fishing vessel Captains and
crew in order to capacitate them and enhance their skills and knowledge about
policies in fishing operations, safe navigation at sea – focusing on chart
works, plotting, and fish catch documentation (filling up of log sheets).
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| Ms. Alma Dickson, Fishing Technology and Management Consultant, BFAR |
Ms.
Alma Dickson, the Fishing Technology and Management Consultant of BFAR, discussed
about the relevant national policies and FAOs on commercial fishing operations
and of different RFMOs conservation measures for commercial fishing operations.
This helped the vessel captains and crew increase their awareness about the
existing policies and abide by them accordingly.
Moreover,
Mr. Marlo Demo-os presented about BFAR’s Fisheries Observer Program, which is
responsible for providing the training and support necessary for deploying
observers to collect scientific data and other information to fishing, as
stated in Section 2 of FAO-240 s. 2012. He also talked about the duties and
responsibilities of Fisheries Observers, their mandate, and sanctions. In
addition to this, Ms. Maria Joy Mabanglo presented BFAR’s Vessel
Monitoring System (VMS) operations. She talked about how VMS works, Entry and
Exit Notification, Anti-Tampering feature, and how to troubleshoot the
electronic logbook that comes with the system. Mr. Isidro Tanangonan on the
other hand, discussed about the bycatch policies and rules to help fishing
vessel Captains and other crew raise their awareness about the decline in
population of certain species and help them learn how to handle their bycatch,
specifically sharks.
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Sample of an actual Log sheet for Purse Seine and Ring Net
Operators
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Mr.
Eugene Casas, the Senior Fishing Regulations Officer of BFAR 12, discussed
about the importance of fish catch documentation. He explained further that log
sheets are to be filled up by the fishing vessel captains to document their fishing activity at sea. He
also walked them through all the fields in the log sheet and taught them how to
fill them up with necessary data.
To
complete the said training, Capt. Bernabe Gonzales took the time to educate the
captains and crew about safe navigation by giving them practical exercises on
how to plot their current location in the map with the given latitude and
longitude.
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Fishing Vessel Captains plotting their location based on
the given Latitude and Longitude
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