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Needs for Restoration and
Sustainable Management of Fisheries

Gede S. Sumiarsa¹, Adi Hanafi¹ and Ketut Sugama²

Paper presented at the Biorock II Workshop

January 12 - 24, 2004,

Taman Sari Hotel Pemuteran, Bali,

¹.Research Institute for mariculture, Gondol Bali

² Central Research Institute for Aquaculture, Jakarta

Introduction

Indonesia is an archipelagic country with most part of its area is constituted by archipelagic waters, territorial seas, and extended jurisdiction of exclusive economic zone (EEZ) encompassing 5.8 million km². Potential yield (maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of fisheries products is about 6.4 million MT/year with average exploitation rate 63% throughout its waters (Widodo 2003), however, fish exploitation rates in some areas have been over 100%. Moreover, it has been reported fishing down the food web' in marine ecosystem in which captured fish sizes have been smaller and fishermen have been capturing omnivorous and herbivorous fish species instead of predators (carnivorous fish).

Coastal waters of Indonesia with only minor seasonal changes provide. tremendous possibilities for fisheries activities as well as for marine fish farming. Commercial fish species consumed today are mostly wild caught and small portion of those are produced by aquaculture. The species of high interest can only be produced to a limited extent in Indonesia needing its further attempt to provide commercially within sustainable fisheries management scenario or within environmental-friendly aquaculture system.

The development of marine fisheries in Indonesia has been becoming an important issue since its long 82,000 km coastal lines and large area have great natural renewable and un-renewable natural resources. In addition, attenuating of land resources resulted in marine resources becomes a prime .mover for national development in the future (Hartono et al., 2003).

Current Issues

The _'government of Indonesia wish to improve fisheries management and farmed fish in aquaculture to extend knowledge about techniques to sustain fisheries activities, to protect coral reefs and endangered fish species from extinction due to heavy exploitation observed today. Fisheries together with aquaculture have three main points of benefit: to provide employment and income generation, to strengthen national food security by providing inexpensive and high quality foods, and to earn foreign exchange by exporting high value products. However, apart from fisheries, aquaculture has been blamed for two negative impacts: adverse environmental impacts and unsustainable enterprises. New technology such as recirculation systems in aquaculture, therefore are becoming a more frequent feature of modern fish farming practices due to those mentioned impact and tougher environmental laws on the discharged waste water. In a closed system, the polluted water draining from fish tanks is piped back into a purification filter treatment, and after aeration and oxygenation, is returned to the fish tanks (Steenfeldt et al., 2002).

Currently, there are few restrictions on fishing activities within Indonesian waters. Fishing by illegal push nets, electrical devices, dynamite, poison (potassium cyanide), and fishing endangered species have been reported frequently to cause impacts to further destroy marine life. As reported by Widodo (2003) fish stocks in Malacca Strait and Java Sea have been overfished for years while fish stocks in Banda Sea are almost fully exploited. It has been also considered that even thou4h it is renewable, it will still need a long time to recover fisheries resources from highly exploited condition, hence, utilization of these resources must be carried out wisely (Heruwati et al., 2003).

Law enforcement dealing with commercial exploitation of existing aquatic resources and reduction of undesired environmental impacts caused by human activities must be strictly applied. During fish spawning seasons in some areas, for example, all fishing activities have to be prohibited, spawning and nursery grounds must be protected. A fishing license system has been established to control the number of fishing boats and to stipulate the size of net meshes, and illegal practices must be severely punished. It has been observed that even though illegal fishing activities are destructive, it appears that local community and the government do not have any mechanism to control ii (TNC 2003).

In coastal areas, particularly in Eastern Indonesia, opportunities to improve living and reducing vulnerability of lots-income and fishermen families are closely linked to improvement of aquatic resource management, habitat rehabilitation, and introduction of low-cost aquaculture as well. These activities both within the coastal and inland areas offer possible entry points for improving livelihoods. Fishing communities in coastal areas are clustered among the poorest income strata of Indonesia and, as fisheries stocks declines, due to loss of nursing grounds and over-fishing, they face downward pressure on living standards and an unsustainable future.

The other issue is the lack of awareness of the community as well as policy makers on the sustainable fisheries management. Although there are evidences of successful cases of community-based fisheries. information flow to stakeholders, decision-makers and fishermen have not been done in an appropriate way. It has led to a rather poor perception among stakeholders and decision-makers resulting in weak support from their sides. Coastal communities are sometimes inadequately considered and served in rural development, which need to be addressed by a strong national policy. Mechanisms for policy development. implementation and feedback should be participatory and involve understanding the livelihoods of coastal people and has to improve basic knowledge and skills, utilizing their indigenous knowledge and empower people to sustain their income.

Follow-up

Fishermen provide the basis of food security for the rest of society. Yet poverty remains the major preoccupation among fishermen in Indonesia. From aquaculture point of view, government of Indonesia has been proposing a sustainable mariculture for poverty alleviation with main objectives of promoting active participation of local . communities and fishermen in the management of sustainable aquaculture practices and establishing procedures for undertaking appropriate environmental impacts and assessment arid monitoring to minimize ecological changes resulting from mariculture activities.

There have been reported some community-based fisheries activities have been underway in some coastal areas for years particularly in Eastern Indonesia. In East Lombok, fishermen have been applying strict local laws --with severe punishment—to selectively capture highly commercial lobsters based on their size. In Maluku, sasi (prohibition) tradition in fisheries resources management has been proven to be effective for sustainable management in harvest restriction in timing and fish size (Purnomo 2003). In addition to be effective, it has been further considered that this community-based fisheries management activities (`tradition') is inexpensive without or with a minimum government's financial assistance.

Coral reef restoration along Pemuteran coastal waters provides a good example of community participation in natural resources conservation and management. The current success resulted from community awareness of environmental impacts leading to the initiation of efforts to conserve and rehabilitate these natural resources. These efforts have required persistent, courage and the ability to adapt management practices in a time consuming process. This successful implementation has also required a public awareness , and the contribution, and efficient coordination from the various involved institutions. Coastal rural community and the Biorock program have been attempting to deal with these problems of loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation by providing a working example of how conservation of natural resources can be achieved while still allowing for sustainable use and sustainable income, from people, for people, and by people.

Literature Cited

Hartono, T.T.. M.A. Iqbal, A.H. Purnomo. 2003. The determination of the indicators of development performance of capture fisheries in Indonesia: study case of mini purse seine fisheries in North Coast of Java. IMFS Expo and Seminar, Jakarta December 13 - 16, 2003. pp. 148 - 158.

Heruwati, E.S., J. Basmal, Subaryor.o, and Suryanti. 2003. Quality assessment of small pelagic fish landed at Blanakan and Pekalogan landing places. IMFS Expo and Seminar, Jakarta December 13 - 16, 2003. pp. 141 - 147.

Purnomo, A.H. 2003. How sas: practices make fisher's knowledge effective. IMFS Expo and Seminar, Jakarta December 13 - 16, 2003. pp. 240 - 251.

Steenfeldt, S., P.B. Pedersen, A. Jokumsen, and I. Lund. 2002- Hatchery production of tropical marine fish in recirculation system. Training Course. Danish Institute for Fisheries Research (DIFRES), The North Sea Centre, Hirtshals. Denmark. 103 p.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC). 2003. Report on a rapid ecological assessment of the Raja Ampat Islands, Papua, Eastern Indonesia held October 30 - November 22. TNC, WWF, and Pemda Kabupaten Raja Ampat- 246 p. Widodo 2003. Fishery stock assessment in Indonesia. IMFS Expo and Seminar, Jakarta December 13 - 16, 2003. 13 p.