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From hook to plate local fisheries focus on sustainability
Catch of the day: Workers sort snapper on a boat off the coast of Probolinggo, East Java
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Catch of the day: Workers sort snapper on a boat off the coast of Probolinggo, East Java.
Bringing the nation's fisheries in line with international environmental standards won't harm local fishermen. It will broaden their access to foreign markets.
Although Indonesia is the third-largest producer of wild fish, most of its fisheries are unregulated, making it difficult to ensure that fish are harvested sustainably and that national fishery resources are not depleted in the long term.
Currently, nearly 6 million fishermen and fish farmers, mostly small-scale operators, are directly dependent on fisheries for their livelihoods.
Out of around 560,000 fishing vessels that operate in Indonesian waters, about 98 percent are less than 30 gross tons; while about 90 percent of fish ponds operate on less than 2 hectares of land.
Saut Parulian Hutagalung, the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry's director general of fish production, marketing and processing, said that law enforcement and regulation of the sector have not been satisfactory.
However, he noted that the ministry introduced eco-friendly management measures between 2008 and 2010 to promote business over the long term.
'By developing and adopting policies to support sustainable growth for both small and large industrial scale fisheries businesses, we can improve the income and socioeconomic welfare of fisheries operators. Improving the livelihoods of small-scale producers in particular is based on the sustainable utilization of fisheries resources,' he said.
Hutagalung was one of several representatives of the Indonesian government and local companies and NGOs who gave presentations on their work to promote sustainable fisheries at the Seafood Expo North America in Boston in the US last month.
The ministry will follow up its participation at the expo, one of the industry's largest, with the Global Oceans Action Summit at The Hague from April 22 to 25.
The summit will feature a pre-conference for the Asia region to be co-hosted by the ministry, the World Bank, the government of the Netherlands and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.
In Boston, the ministry and the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) ' an NGO comprising more than 50 experts worldwide seeking to boost corporate responsibility in fisheries ' spoke of their initiatives, discussing plans forged with catchers and processors so companies could cooperate with suppliers at multiple levels.
The SFP, founded in 2006, currently oversees more than 40 fisheries improvement projects (FIP) around the world, including projects in Indonesia.
Dessy Anggraeni, the partnership's FIP director for Southeast Asia, was realistic. 'It would be impractical to try to stop people from fishing, but we might be able to improve the management of fishing practices, such as by regulating types of fishing gear, designating zones for fishing grounds, and closed and open seasons.'
The US is a major fisheries market for Indonesia, accounting for US$1.4 billion in sales, or about one-third of the nation's total exports in the sector.
Exporting to the US, however, requires companies to meet demanding standards for product quality, including those covering sustainability.
Demand for sustainable certification from customers, in addition to pressure from NGOs, has persuaded local operators to move beyond business as usual.
At the event, the Indonesian fishing industry was represented by 16 companies ' double the number of those who attended in 2013.
Among the local companies at Boston was PT Ilufa, a processing company that has supplied the US market since 2008 and which employs 150 workers at a plant supplied by 60 catching and mothership vessels.
Ilufa's owner and managing director, Lenny Danuseputro, said that increasing pressure from buyers on sustainability led the company to implement several FIPs.
'Being part of the improvement movement gives a higher value to our products and allows us to supply to a wider range of markets including the US supermarket chains like Walmart,' she said.
The objectives of Ilufa's FIPs are to promote traceability 'from the hook to the plate', improve catch data reporting and support the development of fisheries management plans for operations in the Aru, Arafura and Timor Seas.
Indonesia is the world's biggest tuna producer and FIPs have targeted tuna and snapper fishing.
Progress is reported publicly online. The data advises corporate partners about the sustainability of the fish that they buy.
Intimas Surya director Ivan Hans Jorgih Amin said sustainability was not currently a regulation but a market-requested pressure, so there were market incentives to comply.
'It's our responsibility to manage fisheries better, and improving catch data reporting allows us to contribute to stock assessments of Indonesian fisheries so the right decisions can be made nationally,' said Ivan, whose company has operated for 21 years with 28 fishing vessels and 400 workers at its two processing plants in Bali.
The move toward regulation comes at a time when both companies have reported catches of decreasing volume and individual fish size.
However, the vast majority of companies do not participate in FIPs, perhaps considering long-term implications too nebulous.
'There are no incentives that we can feel directly yet. Stagnant prices are still a big concern for everyone,' Ivan says.
Lenny, however, said that complying with FIPs and government regulations provided more options to buyers ' and higher competitive advantage.
She said that the challenge was in educating fishermen and captains, many who were illiterate and lived day to day, to collect good data to boost long-term commercial value.
