Indonesia continues to fight illegal fishing

Indonesia has been doing important steps in line with the trend of sustainable fisheries management policies, including efforts to fight Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing practices.

The country`s marine and fisheries policy is dedicated to eradicate poverty, provide jobs and enhance national growth in sustainable manner for the welfare of all people. 

In light of this, the government through the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry is drawing up a national action plan for addressing illegal fishing. 

"The draft of the national action plan to fight illegal fishing has been signed by Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Sharif Cicip Sutardjo as the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Decision No.50/MEN/2012," Director General of Marine and Fisheries Resources Surveillance Syahrin Abdurrahman said in a statement on Thursday. 

He noted that the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Decision was also intended to be a reference for every organizational unit within the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry in its effort to prevent and address the illegal fishing activities.

Speaking at the Maritime Security Desktop Exercise and Law of the Sea Course in Nusa Dua, Bali, last April 22, Syahrin said illegal fishing has caused Indonesia to suffer Rp30 trillion loss per year.

He pointed out at the time that Natuna waters, North Sulawesi Sea, and Arafuru Sea were prone to illegal fishing, but monitoring these areas was difficult due to the government`s limitations.

Therefore he said efforts to fight illegal fishing were done through a cooperation and coordination with other institutions.

"The tackling of illegal fishing is done through a cooperation and coordination with other institutions such as Indonesian Navy, the Water Police, and independent patrols coordinated by the Marine Security Coordinating Agency (Bakorkamla)," Syahrin said.

According to him, Indonesia had asked the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to help control illegal fishing activities in the country. 

"I have asked the FAO to participate in controlling or informing about illegal fishing activities in the country concerned," he said here on Wednesday.

He said the cooperation between his ministry and the FAO is mainly aimed at informing recipient countries with regard to illegal fish to minimize illegal fishing activities and in connection with that imported fish must be accompanied with certificate of origin.

He said a code of conduct would possibly also be made to create understanding on the issue.

"But whether sanction would be given individual recipient or recipient countries it still has yet to be discussed," he said. 

He said his ministry would never stop in the fight against the crime in the sea.

Meanwhile, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry`s head of statistic and information center, Indra Sakti said in a statement on May 20 that the ministry authorities had again detained five foreign fishing boats, illegally entering the Indonesian waters for illegal fishing.

Indra said the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry had again 

proven its commitment in eradicating the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing activity by simultaneously and regularly conducting the monitoring operation, both in the western part and eastern part of Indonesia.

He said the illegal fishing and the destructive fishing have to be considered the manifestations of the extraordinary crime as it vividly causes the destruction of the maritime and fishery resource.

Besides Indra, Marine Affairs and Fisheries Minister Sharif C. Sutardjo asserted that the IUU fishing activity was not only detrimental to the Indonesian fishermen, but also threatened the continuity of the maritime and fishery resource management.

"I really appreciate the performance of the field monitoring officers who have again detained three Vietnamese-flagged and one Malaysian-flagged fishing boats in the western flank as well as one Philippine-flagged fishing boat in the eastern flank," Sharif said. 

The minster explained that this operational achievement done by marine and fisheries ministry showed that the illegal fishing conducted by the foreign fishing boats was still high.

But he said the ministry seized as many as 4,326 fishing boats in 2012, 112 of them believed to have violated the law and 70 of them were foreign fishing boats and 42 others local fishing boats.

In the past eight years the ministry had examined 20,064 fishing boats and the cases of 714 of them had been brought to court.

The number of local boats believed to have conducted illegal fishing reached 563. 

But Syahrin Abdurrahman stated that the detainment of detainment of five illegal foreign fishing boats in May this year was another success of the routine operation of the directorate general of the marine and fisheries ministry.

On May 11, two KG 94023 TS (100 GT) and KG 90616 TS (80GT) hull-coded Vietnamese-flagged fishing boats were also arrested and escorted to the Batam maritime and fishery resource monitoring adhoc task force

Source: ANTARA