Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing is a major worldwide threat to the sustainability of fish stocks and marine biodiversity. It can also cause considerable losses to fishing fleets operating legally that could be confronted with unfair practices in fishing grounds and in markets, and can be detrimental to coastal communities in developing countries, where fish products represent the major source of food supply and play important role in poverty alleviation.
Guided by the Resolution on Sustainable Fisheries for Food Security for the ASEAN Region Towards 2020, the need to enhance collaboration among government agencies that have the responsibility to address fisheries and fisheries-related issues, and in order to harmonise policies, plans and activities that support sustainable fisheries, food security at the national and regional levels, the senior officials of ASEAN-SEAFDEC Member Countries adopted the Plan of Action on Sustainable Fisheries for Food Security for the ASEAN Region Towards 2020 to be used as guideline in developing programs, projects and activities in accordance with the provisions in the Resolution. With regards to marine fisheries management and specifically on IUU fishing, the Senior Officials of ASEAN-SEAFDEC Member Countries specified on the need to strengthen regional and national policy and legislation to implement measures and activities to combat IUU fishing, including the development and implementation of national plans of action to combat IUU fishing, and promote the awareness and understanding of international and regional instruments and agreements through information dissemination campaigns. In addition, the need to facilitate consultative dialogue among fisheries legal officers to share, at the sub-regional/regional level, perspectives of the respective legal and regulatory framework in terms of developing MCS-networks and to implement efforts to combat IUU fishing, is also provided for the Plan of Action. Moreover, the Plan of Action also stipulated the importance of building up the capacity among Member Countries, including functions for regional and sub-regional cooperation, to effectively meet the requirements of port state measures and flag state responsibilities.

This training course has three components:

• Component I: Compose of lectures/discussion: The objective of this component is to provide and exchange information on the situation of fisheries management to combat IUU fishing in the Southeast Asian region. Specific lectures and discussions willinclude the overview of fisheries and IUU fishing in Southeast Asia, IUU fishing and its impact on the economies and environment, responsible practices as well as selective fishing gears and devices in reducing bycatch/discards, fishing license and boat registration systems, flag state responsibilities and port state measures, market measures and mechanism, laws of the sea and enforcement, concept of MCS (Monitoring, Control and Surveillance) and its  implementation,  ecosystem approach to fisheries management, roles/functions of governance in combating IUU fishing as well as co-management and locally-based approaches which can be applied to combat IUU fishing.
  
  
• Component II: Field trip and visit to Samutsakorn fishing port, and Inland Fishery Administrative and Management Unit (Kang Krajan Dam, Petchaburi Province)
  
  
• Component III: Two days workshop on “Way forwards to combat IUU  fishing in each country”