The fishing industry is recognized as a high-risk occupation in the world, and it is also one of the eight high-risk industries identified by the mainland. Frequent and frequent fishery production safety accidents not only affect the happiness of fishermen's families, economic development and social stability in fishing areas, but also become a "roadblock" for rural revitalization. By evaluating recent fishing vessel accidents at sea, and combining the problems found in daily law enforcement supervision and supervision and inspection, this paper comprehensively analyzes the problems and deficiencies of fishery safety production supervision in multiple dimensions and aspects, focusing on responsibility implementation, team building, law enforcement mechanism, equipment support, scientific and technological support, etc., and puts forward specific measures to optimize fishery safety production supervision and law enforcement for the reference of relevant departments.
This article was published in the 5th issue of China Fisheries magazine in 2023, if you need to reprint, please indicate that it is reprinted from the WeChat public account of "China Fisheries" (ID: fishery1958).
Adhering to the system concept is one of the world outlook and methodology of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and it is a basic ideology and working method. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that "we must adhere to the concept of system" and "continuously improve the ability of strategic thinking, historical thinking, dialectical thinking, systematic thinking, innovative thinking, legal thinking, and bottom-line thinking, so as to provide scientific thinking methods for forward-looking thinking, overall planning, and overall promotion of various undertakings of the party and the country."
Studying and understanding General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on the concept of system is of great guiding significance for improving the ability and level of fishery safety production supervision and law enforcement in the new era and new journey, better coordinating development and safety, and effectively safeguarding the safety of people's lives and property and the overall social stability of fishing areas.
1. The current situation of fishery safety production in Fujian Province
Fujian Province has a sea area of 136,000 km² and a total coastline of 3,752km, ranking second in the country. In recent years, party committees and governments at all levels in Fujian Province, marine and fishery, coast guard, maritime and other sea-related departments at all levels have thoroughly implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping's concept of safe development, and under the unified leadership of the Fujian provincial party committee and government, adhered to the concept of "development must not come at the expense of human lives", strengthened the control of fishing vessels and fishing ports, did a good job in the investigation of potential safety hazards, strengthened the linkage of multi-department and cross-regional law enforcement, and severely cracked down on various violations of laws and regulations, such as failing to complete their duties in accordance with regulations, shutting down fishing vessel safety terminal equipment without authorization, and changing the type of operation in violation of regulations. The supervision of fishery production safety has achieved certain results.
However, it is undeniable that in recent years, the situation of fishery safety production in Fujian Province has become severe and complicated, especially since 2022, a number of water safety production accidents have occurred one after another. On August 12, 2022, a foam ship in a township in the waters of Changsha Village, a county in Fujian Province, capsized, killing 29 people on board, killing 3 people and missing 4 people. On September 27 of the same year, "Min Yuyun 60286" and "Min Mou Yuyun 60535" collided in a sea area about 8.8 nautical miles south-east of Dongyin Island, causing the "Min Yuyun 60535" boat to sink, and all 9 crew members fell into the water and disappeared. On February 10, 2023, "Min Moyu 60996" was collided and sunk by a merchant ship about 18 nautical miles southeast of Matsu Dongyin Island, causing 8 people to lose contact. On February 11, 2023, "Min's Fishing Transport 60936" disappeared in the sea area about 17 nautical miles southeast of Dongjiao Island in Zhangzhou City, resulting in 7 missing contacts and 1 rescue. The successive fishery production safety accidents have caused heavy losses to the lives and property of the people, and the lessons are very profound.
Second, there are problems
From the perspective of the accident itself, the direct cause of the accident may only be that the fishing vessel involved did not comply with the safety operation procedures of the fishing vessel, and did not complete the duty crew in accordance with the regulations. But the occurrence of any accident is not accidental, and every seemingly accidental accident has an inevitable cause. Through the evaluation of recent fishing vessel accidents through system concepts, system theories, systematic methods, etc., combined with the problems found in daily law enforcement supervision, supervision and inspection, etc., taking territorial management, departmental supervision and the main responsibility of ship owners as the starting point, and comprehensively analyzing the problems and deficiencies of fishery safety production supervision work in multiple dimensions and aspects such as responsibility implementation, team building, law enforcement mechanism, equipment support, scientific and technological support, etc., there are mainly the following problems.
(1) The responsibilities of local party and government leaders are incomplete and detailed, and the establishment of relevant systems is not perfect
1. Insufficient ideological understanding
Recently, there have been a number of major accidents and the arrest of "three no" boats and township ships, revealing that some local party committees and governments lack political responsibility for safe production management, fail to coordinate development and safety, do not have a deep understanding of the extreme importance, arduousness and complexity of safe production work, and make arrangements that remain in lip service and do not fall on solving problems. The responsibility is limited to the cadres, and it is not directly managed to the production and operation units, and it is not accurate to the supervision object; Hidden danger rectification, difficult problems, and terminal management are not in place, resulting in the recurrence of similar accidents.
2. Inadequate regulatory enforcement forces
Fishery safety production supervision is a complex and huge work, port inspection, duty duty, law enforcement supervision and other links need the participation of law enforcement personnel, law enforcement team construction is very important to fishery safety production supervision. Taking the township where the "9.27" accident occurred as an example, the township fishery law enforcement squadron had only three on-the-job personnel and four temporary personnel, while there were more than 590 registered fishing vessels in the jurisdiction, most of which were large and medium-sized fishing auxiliary vessels, and the contradiction between insufficient front-line law enforcement personnel and safety production supervision became increasingly prominent.
3. Inadequate enforcement mechanisms
The supervision of fishery production safety covers a wide range of areas, including the responsibilities of other regulatory departments in addition to the local party committee and government responsible for territorial management and the fishery department responsible for industry supervision. For example, the inspection function of fishing vessels in some cities and counties is transferred to the transportation department, the supervision of shipyards for the repair of "three no" ships belongs to the market supervision department, and the need to investigate and deal with violations of laws and regulations and suspected criminal offenses needs to be connected with the coast guard and public security departments, but at present, the mechanisms for law enforcement coordination, information sharing, information reporting, and law enforcement linkage between various departments are not perfect, which not only easily causes regulatory gaps, but also affects the effectiveness of law enforcement.
(2) The responsibility for fishery safety supervision is not strict and untrue, and the "red line" of safe production is not effectively observed
1. Hidden danger investigation is not in place
Some local fishery authorities have not implemented their responsibilities for the supervision of fishery production safety in place and are not in depth, have not thoroughly investigated and rectified safety problems and hidden risks, and problems such as fishing vessels "carrying diseases" to the sea, changing their operation methods without authorization, cross-sea operations, marshalling production and failure to implement the watchout system have existed for a long time.
2. Law enforcement crackdowns are not severe enough
For a long time, some localities have not cracked down effectively and strictly investigated and dealt with violations of laws and regulations, and generally fined illegal acts such as uneven crew allocation in fishery duties according to the lower limit. Some localities "turn a blind eye" to unauthorized changes in the type of operation and auxiliary vessels illegally engaging in fishing operations, and similar violations occur repeatedly, and port inspections and maritime law enforcement are not strong enough to form an effective deterrent.
3. Lack of supervision of key fishing vessels
There are two main types of key fishing vessel supervision, one is township vessels, and the number of existing township vessels in Fujian Province far exceeds the number of fishing vessels registered with the fishery department, which is also a weak link in the supervision of fishing vessels. Most of these township vessels have been engaged in fishery production and auxiliary work for a long time, but only the ship's identification number has been written by the township government, and they have not been registered and inspected by the fishery authorities, nor have they been equipped with professionally trained duty crews in accordance with regulations, and there has been a lack of effective supervision for a long time, and there are serious safety risks. The other category is the "three no" ships. In recent years, all relevant departments have intensified the clean-up and rectification of "three no" ships and achieved remarkable results, but there are still situations in some places where the number of "three no" ships is unclear, the situation is unclear and the supervision is lacking, which brings great uncertainty to maritime safety production.
4. Insufficient law enforcement safeguards
In recent years, all relevant departments have adhered to the combination of "civil air defense", "physical defense" and "technical defense", accelerated the improvement of law enforcement equipment and law enforcement conditions such as law enforcement vessels and docks, and accelerated the popularization of intelligent technical control methods such as video surveillance, electronic fences, Beidou positioning, and AIS for fishing vessels. However, from the current application situation, due to the differences in economic strength and development stage, some localities have problems such as insufficient and unbalanced funding and hardware support, and some remote fishing ports, Aokou and some township ships have not achieved full coverage of monitoring and management; In some localities, cities and counties, the tonnage of law enforcement vessels is insufficient and cannot adapt to the needs of maritime law enforcement with large winds and waves; In some places, law enforcement terminals have low berthing levels and weak berthing capacity, and cannot dock large-tonnage law enforcement vessels; In Fujian Province, the construction of ship arrest points is insufficient, and in many cases, suspected illegal ships seized by law enforcement can only temporarily dock at the waterway, which is difficult to implement effective monitoring, and there are also serious safety risks.
5. Insufficient application of new scientific and technological means
Some regions and regulators do not have enough mastery of new scientific and technological means such as mobile Internet, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc., unheard of how drones, unmanned ships, and robots can help fishery law enforcement, and the promotion of "Internet + supervision" is lagging behind, and many law enforcement personnel still mainly rely on old methods and methods to carry out their work, and the work efficiency and accuracy of law enforcement supervision are not high enough.
6. Team building is still weak
Some law enforcement personnel do not have enough study and mastery of fishery safety supervision laws and regulations, and their characterization is inaccurate when handling cases, the application of law is not standardized, and the quality of case handling is not high. Some law enforcement personnel have an old-fashioned concept, supervision and law enforcement methods cannot keep pace with the times, and the efficiency and effectiveness of law enforcement are not high. Some law enforcement officers lack entrepreneurial spirit, and there are phenomena of laziness, inaction and slow action.
(3) The main responsibility of the shipowner and captain is not in place, and the awareness of safe production and the legal system is weak
Taking the "9.27" accident as an example, after investigation, the fishing vessels involved all seriously violated the regulations on the management of fishery production safety, such as changing the type of operation without authorization, disassembling the Beidou positioning without authorization, uneven staffing of duty crews, failing to hold certificates for ordinary crew members, failing to strictly implement the entry and exit reporting system, failing to comply with the safety operation procedures of fishing vessels, and not thoroughly implementing the marshalling and production of fishing vessels. All these fully expose that some shipowners and captains, as the first responsible persons, seriously lack safety awareness, legal awareness, and main responsibility.
3. Specific measures to optimize fishery production safety supervision and law enforcement using a systematic concept
2023 is the first year to fully implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the beginning of the new practice of comprehensively promoting Chinese-style modernization. In the face of the current complex and severe situation of fishery safety production, we must firmly establish a systematic concept, trace the roots, systematically treat and promote as a whole, and towards the goal of "zero safety accidents", strengthen the sense of responsibility, improve the supervision mechanism, improve the law enforcement capacity, strengthen the law enforcement guarantee, and effectively implement the territorial management, departmental supervision and the main responsibility of the ship owner, so as to provide a strong guarantee for the high-quality development of fishery in Fujian Province.
(1) Coordinate security and development, and promote the implementation of territorial management responsibilities
Local party and government cadres are a "key minority" in the work of safe production, and whether the party and government leaders have a strong sense of safe production, unclear responsibilities, and strict implementation directly affects whether the situation of safe production in a region is stable. It is recommended that local party committees and governments effectively improve their political standing, strengthen the sense of responsibility of "always rest assured", firmly establish the concept of people first and life first, adhere to bottom-line thinking, strengthen mission responsibility, better coordinate safety and development, continuously strengthen fishery safety production work, and ensure the safety of people's lives and property.
1. Improve the working mechanism for safe fishery production
Adhere to the joint responsibility of the party and the government, the dual responsibility of one post, the joint management of all efforts, and the accountability for dereliction of duty, and further improve the responsibility system for safe production in fisheries. Earnestly put fishery safety production work on the important agenda of the work of party committees and governments, regularly study and judge the situation, solve major problems in fishery safety production work, and make overall plans to promote fishery safety production work in the overall economic and social development of the region.
2. Attach importance to the building of fishery law enforcement teams
Earnestly attach importance to the building of the leading bodies and cadre ranks of the fishery law enforcement contingent, and select cadres with a strong sense of professionalism and responsibility, practical experience, strong organizational ability and professional knowledge to the fishery law enforcement contingent. The staffing of fishery law enforcement agencies should be specially staffed and dedicated to posts, and ensure that the staffing is exclusively used to enrich front-line law enforcement forces. Explore the establishment and improvement of a contingent of auxiliary personnel for fishery administration law enforcement, and effectively improve the shortage of law enforcement personnel.
3. Strengthen the coordination and linkage of fishery-related departments
Promote the organization, publicity, political and legal work, institutional establishment and other units to support the work of ensuring safe production in fisheries, and mobilize all sectors of society to actively participate, support and supervise the work of safe production of fisheries. Establish and improve coordination and linkage mechanisms for fishery, public security, coast guard, maritime affairs, industry and information technology, market supervision and other relevant departments related to fisheries and fisheries, strive to form a joint force, jointly consolidate the responsibility for fishery safe production, implement fishery safety precautionary measures, and improve the ability of fishery safety production supervision.
(2) Coordinate law enforcement and services, and strengthen the implementation of departmental regulatory responsibilities
It is recommended that the competent fishery authorities further improve their political standing, adhere to the people-centered development thinking, take the prevention and resolution of major safety risks as the main line, effectively strengthen the construction of the "three lines and one system" of fishery safety, coordinate law enforcement and services, investigate hidden risks, rectify outstanding problems, improve governance capabilities, further consolidate the basic foundation of local fishery safety, and resolutely curb the occurrence of serious and extraordinarily serious accidents, so as to ensure safe production services and the high-quality development of fisheries.
1. Consolidate the grassroots foundation of fishery safety
At the grassroots level, efforts should be made to strengthen the construction of front-line law enforcement teams, strengthen the study of political theory, on-the-job professional training, and education on discipline and work style, and improve the level of professional construction of law enforcement teams. At the same time, it is necessary to implement care measures, paying attention to political incentives, work support, treatment guarantees, and psychological care. In terms of cadre selection and promotion, we should give preference to cadres who have been fighting for a long time on the front line of grassroots law enforcement, and stabilize the grassroots law enforcement contingent. In terms of basics, it is necessary to strengthen the capacity building of fishery law enforcement, promote scientific and technological innovation, strengthen the "civil air defense + physical defense + technical defense" trinity prevention and control measures, fully apply big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other modern information technologies, make good use of surveillance, Beidou, electronic fences and other means to strengthen the supervision of fishing vessels in fishing ports and improve the level of equipment support. Great efforts should be made to solve the problem of lack of supervision of fishing vessels in remote and backward areas, docks in remote and backward areas, and use new equipment such as fishery law enforcement assistance robots, unmanned vessels, and lidar to strengthen the construction of ship arrest points involved in the case, focus on solving the problem of difficulty in arresting illegal ships, and provide basic guarantees for strict supervision and law enforcement.
2. Precise control of key points
It is recommended that fishery administration, coast guard, maritime affairs and other departments adopt the method of key deployment and joint strikes, increase the frequency of law enforcement inspections on bottom trawling prohibited fishing lines and key sea areas, and carry out precise strikes. The competent fishery departments and township governments should cooperate in the supervision of township vessels, regard township ships and "three no" fishing-related vessels as the key targets of law enforcement supervision, conscientiously do a good job in screening and registration and situation mapping, and follow the principle of "chartering vessels, chartering people, and regions", do a good job in the registration and registration of township ships, installing positioning and safety supervision terminal equipment, and implement grid management. Township ships of more than 12m or 44.1kW (60 horsepower) or more of the main engine power should be cleaned up. It is strictly forbidden for township vessels, especially "non-standard" vessels, to participate in illegal fishing, maritime transactions and other violations of laws and regulations. Intensify the crackdown on "three no" vessels, and immediately seize and confiscate and dismantle fishing vessels involved in illegal activities such as illegal red coral mining, illegal fishing, and cross-regional border crossing once discovered. At the same time, the joint market supervision department strengthens the traceability and reverse investigation of ship repair plants (points), and strictly investigates and deals with problems according to law.
3. Carry out special rectification actions
Carry out special rectification of illegal changes in the type of operation, and severely crack down on illegal acts such as "encircling and changing tow", "fishing to tow", and "stabbing to towing"; Establish and complete mechanisms for notification, verification, and feedback of offline fishing vessels, carry out special rectification of failure to use safety rescue terminals in accordance with regulations, and severely crack down on violations of laws and regulations such as failure to install terminal equipment in accordance with regulations, unauthorized disassembly, intentional damage, or intentional shielding of terminal equipment, or other failure to use terminal equipment in accordance with regulations.
4. Improve the level of law enforcement services
Correctly handle the relationship between law enforcement and service, accelerate the transformation from management-oriented law enforcement to service-oriented law enforcement, comprehensively improve the level of service in law enforcement, and strive to achieve the harmonious unity of lawful management and civilized service. Advocate "reasonable" law enforcement, and use prompts, guidance, suggestions, interviews, counseling and other methods in a targeted manner to make fishermen consciously abide by the law. Carry out special rectification actions for crew members who are not certified to work, and increase the training of fishery crews, and effectively increase the rate of fishing crew licenses.
5. Optimize the mode of law enforcement supervision
Explore the "classification and control system for the 'red, yellow and green' list of fishing vessels" to achieve precise supervision. Fishing vessels that often go to sensitive waters to fish and often deliberately disassemble the Beidou locator are included in the "red list" key control, combined with information technology and "double random and one public" to carry out key law enforcement supervision, increase the frequency of inspections, and vigorously grasp dereliction of duty and hold them accountable; Fishing vessels that have been in compliance with the law for a long time are included in the "green list" management, exempted from daily inspections and actively enhanced services; The "yellow list" in between, timely and dynamically adjusted according to its compliance with laws and regulations, ensures that limited forces are used to key priorities, not only improves the efficiency of law enforcement and supervision, but also effectively encourages fishing vessels to improve their consciousness of legal and compliant production, and forces illegal fishing vessels to reduce vessels and switch to production and standardize production.
6. Promote credit supervision
Accelerate the establishment of a fishery credit system in Fujian Province, establish and improve a new type of fishery credit supervision mechanism, and realize that shipowners and shipbuilders are "untrustworthy in one place and restricted everywhere".
(3) Coordinate the individual and the whole, and pay close attention to the implementation of the main responsibility of the shipowner's captain
In fishery safety production, fishing boats are individuals, and it is many individuals that gather into the whole of fishery safety production. It is necessary to coordinate the relationship between the individual and the whole, so as to strengthen the implementation of individual responsibility and promote the overall level of fishery safety production.
1. Strengthen warning education and draw inferences from one example
Increase legal popularization services, do a good job in the collection and production of publicity materials for typical cases of safety accidents, take the initiative to enter communities (villages), ports (Ao) entrances, and bow ships, make full use of radio, mobile phone text messages, online new media, etc. to publicize laws, regulations and policy requirements for fishery safe production, and do a good job in warning education for shipowners and captains through case interpretations, special lectures, etc., and effectively enhance their awareness of main responsibility and safety responsibility.
2. Carry out self-examination and self-correction to promote the situation
Adhere to the problem-oriented, require fishing enterprises and fishing vessels in the jurisdiction to self-check and self-correct, establish ledgers for the classification and grading of existing risks and hidden dangers, formulate rectification plans, make lists, set measures, clarify responsibilities, set time limits, strictly check the standard rectification, reconcile account cancellation numbers, ensure that the closed-loop rectification within the time limit is in place, and eliminate potential risks in a timely manner.
3. Strengthen safety inspection and correct positive direction
Combined with the three-year special rectification action for production safety, carry out dragnet inspections, strictly investigate and promote the implementation of the main responsibility, focusing on checking whether the fishing vessel certificate is complete and valid, whether the duty crew is fully equipped, whether the ordinary crew members are licensed to work, whether the fishing vessel is equipped with firefighting, life-saving, signaling, communication, navigation and other safety equipment, whether the "five do not go to sea" system is strictly implemented, whether the fishing equipment, fishing gear and fishing net standards meet the type of fishing license operation, whether they are familiar with the rules for avoiding collisions at sea, etc., so as to eliminate potential safety hazards of fishing vessels to the greatest extent.
Author's name: Lin Zhuming
Author's affiliation: Fujian Provincial Marine and Fisheries Law Enforcement Corps
Source: China Fisheries