Lombok hosts regional meeting on fish poaching

MATARAM, West Nusa Tenggara: Lombok Island in West Nusa Tenggara, is hosting a two-day regional meeting on combating trans-boundary fish poaching, a practice especially detrimental to Indonesia and neighboring Australia.

Kicked off on Wednesday morning, the 2nd coordination meeting of the Regional Plan of Action (RPoA) is expected to produce an agreement among country members to jointly reduce "illegal, unreported, and unregulated" fishing practices in the region.

The RPoA was set up in 2007, members include the 10 ASEAN members plus Australia. Indonesia has been appointed the secretariat of the forum.

The two-day meeting in Lombok is attended by delegates of all RPoA members excluding Malaysia.

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry official, Aji Sularso, who co-chairs the meeting, said the RPoA enabled a sharing of information between country members, such as on new regulations enacted in a country.

"Indonesia, for example, can tell RPoA members that we now apply firm measures against poachers, that we will shoot and drown their vessels found to be poaching in our water areas so that they can inform their fishermen," Aji told reporters.

While Indonesian fishermen have often been found to poach in Australian waters, because of lack of information on boundary issues, Indonesia has often been victim to poaching by fishermen from the Philippines and Thailand. - JP