Indonesia fishery sector losing its bite

Fishing captain Wahyu Sumantri used to helm a 700-tonne vessel that sailed the Celebes Sea from North Sulawesi. These days, he can be found peddling mie ayam, or chicken noodles, from a push cart in his home town of Kerawang, in West Java, about two hours from Jakarta.

“Hopefully, this is just like a long break for me and I will land a job at sea again soon,” he told The Sunday Times. The 38-year-old, who has a degree in fishery technology, lost his job last year after the government deemed his vessel illegal because it was not locally built.

The move was among a series of tough measures introduced by Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti in late 2014 to tackle illegal fishing across Indonesia.

It is also a key plank in President Joko Widodo’s bid to transform Indonesia into a maritime power and also improve the livelihoods of its 2.4 million fishermen.

Pudjiastuti also banned fishermen from unloading their catch out at sea because the other boat, especially if it is a foreign vessel, often bypassed local ports and port controls by taking the fish elsewhere.

This practice is known as at-sea trans-shipment, but illegal trans-shipment has reportedly caused annual losses of US$20 billion to Indonesia’s fishery sector.

Sumantri’s fishing boat is now one of the many such vessels lying idle in Bitung, North Sulawesi. Similar scenes can be seen in nearby Ambon, Maluku.

Bitung is home to the country’s largest fish processing firms, which include tuna canneries and processing plants, employing tens of thousands of locals.

Industry players there, however, say they have been hit hard by Pudjiastuti’s tough policies against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The ban on trans-shipment and use of foreign fishing boats, in particular, has led to a severe cut in fishing resources for these firms.

What this means is that they do not have enough boats to bring in sufficient fish stocks for export.

The utilization of total tuna cannery capacity in Bitung, for instance, has fallen to just 6 percent — or 90 tons a day — from 50 percent two years ago, said Bitung’s fish processing firms’ association chief Basmi Said.