Draft amendment bill for fisheries ordinance back to Lower House to reconsider after the Senate shot it down last week

The Senate last week voiced its disapproval against the draft amendment bill approved by the Lower House with the overwhelming votes of 141 to back the version with new changes by its special law vetting committee

A parliamentary source close to the issue told Bangkok Tribune that the Lower House’s members are waiting for a call from its whip, which should convene within the next two weeks to consider the matter.

According to the related law, the Lower House will reconvene to reconsider a draft bill it has approved but is amended by the Senate. If the two Houses disagree with each other over the draft bill, a joint special law vetting committee will be set up to look through it again and table its version to a joint session to make a decision. If they still don’t see eye to eye, the draft bill will be withheld for up to 180 days before the Lower House goes back to it and makes a final call.

The draft amendment bill has become controversial as it made some critical changes to conserving and utilising marine resources in Thai waters. Thailand was forced to amend its aged-old Fisheries Act B.E. 2490 (1947) once in 2015 following a yellow card issued by the EU over the alleged IUU placed against the country. (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing). 

This resulted in the new Royal Ordinance on Fisheries B.E.2558 (2015) to address the allegations, and among the critical sections in the new Ordinance is Section 69, which imposes a total ban on the use of surrounding nets with the size of the net meshes smaller than 2.5 centimetres to engage in a fishing operation at night.

A few years ago, however, Section 69, along with some others, was relaxed in the draft amendment bill proposed by the Fisheries Department on behalf of the government. The new Section 28 in the draft amendment bill allowed the use of nets of that size beyond 12 nautical miles offshore at night.

Coservationists as well as local fishermen cried fowl that this could affect food chains and the marine ecosystems in that zone as the fine nets will not allow juveniles of marine animals to grow and sustain the entire ecosystem. This, they said, would further disrupt the livelihoods of local fishermen, they said.

The Lower House, however, passed the draft amendment bill last December, resulting in it being passed to the Senate to consider in January. The Senate passed the draft bill in its first reading before facing growing protests from the fishermen and conservationists who went out into the deep waters to collect evidence and show it to its special law vetting committee.

The Senate’s committee eventually made changes to six sections in the draft amendment bill including Section 28 that relaxed Section 69. The change went back to the wording of Section 69 with the new stress on “every type” of surrounding nets is prohibited.

The committee’s version was then submitted to the Senate to consider in the second and third readings on Feb 25. The Senate voted 128 to 8 to back the committee’s change to Section 28 in the draft amendment bill and 141 to 3 to accept the committee’s version as such.

Mrs. Angkhana Neelapaijit, the Senator who proposed the change to Section 28 and the definition of the word “coastal sea” in Section 5, said an attempt to make fishing sustainable is not just about commercial fishery. Half of the country’s marine animal consumption comes from local fishery, and it’s equally important and worth taking into account when considering and resolving fishery problems. Even though the government reserves coastal areas for local fishery, big investors often use these areas for business and have an impact on the environment and coastal fishery, she noted.

Promoting the sustainable fishing profession must focus on environmental conservation as well as preserving marine resources, ecosystems and ensuring sustainable fishery as a source of food for the entire country and the livelihoods of people living in coastal areas, she further noted.

Therefore, improving the law should strengthen the good governance of fisheries, step up conservation measures and set policies that are consistent with international standards as well as livelihoods of local fishermen, rather than trying to limit or reduce protected areas in coastal seas, Mrs. Angkhana pointed out.

Last but not least, the process should allow communities and coastal residents who are stakeholders to participate in setting rules because law enactment that lacks public participation will cause conflicts in determining rights between commercial fishery and local fishery, and this will lead to inequality, the Senator concluded.

Photos: ©Santi Setsin/ Foto united

Fishermen’s voices

Earlier, more than 58 civil organisations, including the Federation of Thai Fisherfolk Association (FTFA) in the network of human rights and environmental organizations in Thailand, submitted a letter before the Senate meetings to request a review of the draft amendment bill.

Mr. Somboon Khamhaeng, Chairman of the Non-Governmental Organization Coordinating Committee (NGO), and representatives from those organizations expressed concern and asked the Senate to cancel the amendment to the law following its passage of the draft bill in the first reading.

Mr. Somboon said that the network had been following the drafting of the amendment bill and learned that some sections of the 2015 Royal Ordinance had been amended, and this was the cause of concern that it would affect the marine ecosystem.

The network said, as stated in the letter submitted to the Senate, that the 2015 Royal Ordinance was created to solve the problem of illegal fishing, from the lack of reporting and controlling the problem of catching fish beyond the capacity of the sea to human trafficking and labor rights violations in Thailand’s fishing industry. The ordinance resulted in Thai marine fisheries and related industries being able to adjust to be in line with international standards and international obligations that Thailand is a member and has certified.

However, the draft amendment bill just risked turning the practices back before 2015.

Fisheries Department’s reasons

Director-General of the Department of Fisheries, Bancha Sukkaew, said during the Low House’s first reading that the draft amendment bill contained 71 amendments in total, as some provisions of the 2015 Royal Ordinance were no longer consistent with the current circumstances of fishing. The extent of law enforcement among related laws also overlapped, he said, citing the labour law as an example. Therefore, it is appropriate to improve the provisions in the Ordinance, he said.

Several important matters had been revised in the draft amendment bill, such as;

-Improving the penalties to be consistent with the seriousness of the offense. (The opposition saw this as lessening penalties.)

-Giving local fishing boats more space to fish.

– Improving the composition of the Provincial Fisheries Committee to have appropriate proportions.

-Regulating that applicants for local fishing licenses must be of Thai nationality only.

-Cancellation of Section 34, which prohibits local fishing boats from fishing outside the coastal sea zone.

– Cancellation of provisions regarding labor control in aquatic animal processing factories that are duplicative of other laws that are already in force, etc.

For an amendment to Section 69 which was highly charged, he explained that the amendment meant to allow the use of surrounding nets with an eyelet smaller than 2.5 centimeters to fish outside 12 nautical miles offshore at night.

The use of lights to lure the fish was also allowed because the target fish, anchovies, were economic and they had a lifespan of about one year only. When not caught, they would die naturally, thus being an economic loss, he cited. The country still needs this species as raw material for the fish sauce industry and the production of dried anchovies. Currently, the industry has to import fish elsewhere to make up for the missing target, which is up to 20,000 tonnes a year, he said.

Mr. Bancha said the Agriculture Ministry would come up with new regulations and measures to ensure that the amendment to Section 69 would not affect juveniles of other fish, he said, adding that the impact would be “minimal”, if any. 

The Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), which is the maximum quantity of aquatic animals that can be caught, would be applied to determine the  amount that can be allowed for fishing (TAC), according to Mr. Bancha. According to him, the last fishing year, anchovy in Thai waters had an MSY value of 221,459 tons, allocated to catch at 217,030 tons (98 percent of the MSY value). But from the data on the amount of anchovy caught in 2024, this was only 90,000 tons, he said.

Conservationists, marine scientists, and local fishermen were not convinced, however.

l Conservationists and marine scientists led by the Seub Nakhasathien Foundation have recently organised public seminars to disseminate information and share new evidence they have captured through cameras from the deep sea to the public to raise their public awareness over the issue. Photos: Bangkiok Tribune

Also read @ เสวนา, “ทางรอด หรือ ทางร่วง ทะเลไทย?”/ SPECIAL REPORT: Thailand ‘bringing back the bad old days’ for fisheries, say activists