Ngoc Hung
The agriculture ministry needs help to thwart the illegal import of animals in the list of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), including sturgeon.
The ministry has no other choice but to resort to this tough measure as a considerable volume of Chinese sturgeon has been flown into Vietnam via illegal import channels or legalization by sturgeon farming areas in the north of the country.
Like other species in the list of CITES, Chinese sturgeon must be licensed by CITES Vietnam and CITES China before being imported into Vietnam, a CITES Vietnam representative told the Daily.
The representative admitted his agency so far has only issued certificates to companies importing sturgeon eggs or breeder sturgeon and that no enterprises have asked his agency for a license for commercial sturgeon imports from China. As such, Chinese sturgeon on sale in the local market at the moment is illegal.
The agriculture ministry also requests Vietnam Airlines to transport sturgeon with legal origin. That is because a large volume of sturgeon has reportedly been transported by air from Hanoi to HCMC for sale recently. Some even suggested that the ministry’s Department for Animal Health set up a quarantine checkpoint at Tan Son Nhat International Airport to prevent sturgeon smuggling.
However, Nguyen Van Binh, director of the Department for Animal Health for Zone 6 which has an office in HCMC, argued it is unnecessary to do so. Binh ascribed his viewpoint to the fact that domestic animal transport, including transporting sturgeon, isn’t subject to veterinary safety certification in line with the prevalent law.
Relating to sturgeon smuggling, after local media reported that sturgeon imported illegally from China was on sale at local supermarkets, market monitoring officers of a province set up an inspection team. One of the supermarkets inspected presented a certificate showing its sturgeon purchase from a local fish farming company but the enterprise denied the information, saying it only sold sturgeon to the supermarket from 2010 to 2011. No sturgeon was sold to the supermarket in 2012, the firm insisted in a report to the agriculture ministry not long after the incident.
Đăng ký: VietNam News
