Status of major coastal fishing activities in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Abstract

A study on the major fisheries was conducted from August 2017 to April 2018 in coastal provinces of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Results showed that the gillnets, trawl nets, and stow nets were the main fishing gears, accounted for the highest number of fishing boats and yields. All the fishing gears exploited for the whole year-round. The results also indicated that gillnets fishery is the largest scale (10.99 tons). The most effective fishing activity of gillnets fishy was the highest profit (298 million VND per year) (p <0.05). However, the highest fishing yield (20.42 tons/year) was found in trawler but it had the lowest rate of return (0.45 times) and trash-fish portion accounted the highest ratio (38.4%). Although the stow nets had highest rate of return (1.41 times), but they were lowest yield (7.17 tons/year) and high portion of trash-fish. The high proportion of trash-fish may affect to fisheries resources. For the sustainable development of the fisheries in the Mekong Delta, the development and management of fisheries resources should be promoted, supporting fishermen to access low interest rates to invest in capture production, and training fishermen to use advanced fishing gear to increase their fishing efficiency.