Marine Living Resources Act, 1998 (Act No. 18 of 1998)RegulationsRegulations in terms of the Marine Living Resources Act, 1998Chapter 8 : Compliance Control76. Vessel monitoring systems |
| (1) | Any foreign fishing vessel for which a foreign fishing licence has been granted in accordance with section 39 of the Act, shall at all times be equipped with an automated satellite linked vessel monitoring system (VMS). |
| (2) | For the purposes of subregulation (1) "VMS" means an autonomous system able to automatically transmit messages to a land-based fishing monitoring centre allowing a continuous tracking of the position of the fishing vessel and— |
| (a) | information transmitted shall include the vessel's identification, latitude, longitude, date and time, course and speed which shall be transmitted at the required intervals to ensure that the vessel can be effectively monitored; and |
| (b) | performance standards shall, at a minimum, shall include a system that— |
| (i) | is tamper proof; |
| (ii) | may be polled by the monitoring centre; |
| (iii) | has a two-way messaging capability between the vessel and the monitoring centre; |
| (iv) | is fully automatic and operational at all times regardless of environment conditions; |
| (v) | provides real time data; and |
| (vi) | provides latitude and longitude with a positional accuracy of 100 metres or batter with a confidence interval of 99%. |
| (3) | Any South African vessel for which a fishing licence has been granted, shall at the request of the Department, install a VMS as contemplated in subregulation (1), configured to report to the Sea fisheries monitoring centre. |