After introducing a series of measures to combat widespread illegal fishing, the Prayut government is naturally disappointed to receive a "yellow card" from the European Union — an ultimatum for Thailand to clean up its fishing industry in six months, or face an import ban on fishery products.
The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said it was discouraged that the EU chose "to ignore the very earnest efforts of the past six months by the Royal Thai government in addressing all issues which were deemed the cause of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing".
Disappointment and suspicion at the EU's decision aside, it is undeniable the Thai fishing industry has gained worldwide notoriety for its use of slave-like labour, the widespread practice of illegal fishing and an utter disrespect for marine ecology and fishery laws.
In June 2013, Greenpeace released a report on Thailand's fishing industry. A Greenpeace boat, the Esperanza, was in the Gulf working with coastal communities and civil society groups in Songkhla and Prachuap Khiri Khan to campaign for tougher fishery laws to save fish stocks in the Gulf from possible extinction.
"We saw first-hand that hundreds of commercial fishing boats were operating in the Gulf of Thailand, emptying everything in their path with fishing methods that destroy the marine environment. If this continues, our oceans will be barren, perhaps for a decade," the report said.
Greenpeace called on the government to stop destructive fishing — the use of bottom trawlers, push nets, clam dredgers and light luring — and expand the coastal fisheries protection zones to nine kilometres, and 22km where needed.
The use of push nets is considered the most destructive fishing method for destroying marine ecology. Although the Fisheries Department stopped issuing licences for fishing boats which employ push-net methods in 1982, the number of trawlers keeps growing.
Greenpeace claims 70% of the fishing industry is irresponsible and engaged in destructive fishing methods.
Besides illegal fishing, overfishing is another cause of the rapid depletion of fish and other marine stocks from the world's oceans. A good example of this destructive practice was the near-extinction of cod fish which led to the collapse of the New Foundland Company in Canada two years ago.
Irresponsible and illegal fishing has dogged the Thai fishing industry for decades because governments in the past tended to ignore the problem for the huge returns from the fishery export industry.
The annual export value from the fishing industry amounts to 200 billion baht.
To protect the oceans and avoid a possible export ban from the EU — which will hurt the country badly in economic terms — the government must act fast within a six-month period to prove to the EU that it is fully and genuinely committed to putting an end to IUU fishing.
Meanwhile, the EU must realise that this long-standing and protracted problem cannot be resolved overnight.
The Foreign Ministry has called on the EU to be fair, non-discriminatory and transparent in its assessment of the government's efforts to tackle IUU fishing, and base its evaluation on accurate facts and the latest developments. The EU should heed this call.