THỪA THIÊN–HUẾ — The fishery sector of central Thừa Thiên-Huế Province has been releasing breeds of aquatic animals into the sea with the aim to enrich fishery resources following the sea environmental accidents last year.

Along with releasing breeds, the sector has also enhanced measures to protect breeding areas in the sea.

Hà Văn Duy, official of Quảng Điền District’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the district in co-ordination with the provincial fishery sector recently released 80,000 shrimp breeds and 60,000 crab breeds in the sea, lagoons and Máy Bay Isle’s fishery resource protection area of the district.

Besides this, the department also asked local fishermen to pay more attention to fishery resource protection by fishing regulated sizes of aquatic animals and avoiding overfishing, Duy said.

The sea environmental pollution accident that happened more than one year ago has badly affected sea resources and the lives of local fishermen.

Recovering fishery resources is an urgent task, according to fishery officials.

Fishery resources in the 22,000ha-Tam Giang-Cầu Hai Lagoon are getting exhausted following the environmental accident, along with overfishing.

“Fishery resources last year were more abundant than this year because of the impact of the the sea environmental accident,” Nguyễn Văn Duy, chairman of the Fishery Association, said.

“Besides this, overfishing is also a reason for exhaustion of fishery resources,” he said.

In recent years, the lagoon in Quảng Điền District has become a hot spot of illegal exploitation of fishery resources.

This year, the Quảng Điền District has allocated over 2,500ha of water surface to 14 fishery sub-associations to protect aquatic resources.

Three aquatic resource protection areas on 100ha of water surface were formed in the district -- Vũng Mệ in Quảng Lợi Commune, Máy Bay Isle in Quảng Ngạn Commune and Trộ Kèn Isle in Sịa Township. These areas have helped to reduce overfishing and illegal exploitation, helping in the recovery of aquatic resources.

So far, there are total 23 aquatic resource protection areas in the whole lagoon, with 600ha of water surface protected seriously.

“The protection areas have created an environment for aquatic flora such as seaweeds and algae, which are food resources for marine animals, including a special fish of the lagoon which had disappeared for years,” Nguyễn Quang Vinh Bình, head of the provincial Fishery Development Department, said.

Every year, the fishery sector releases shrimp, crab and fish breeds into the water to recover aquatic resources, Vinh said. — VNS