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In pursuit of tuna: Fishermen spend over a year on the high seas
Catch of the day: Frozen tuna are hauled ashore with a crane in Benoa Harbor
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Catch of the day: Frozen tuna are hauled ashore with a crane in Benoa Harbor.
People should not take tuna for granted. Changing weather patterns and declining fish stocks have pushed some tuna fishermen to spend over a year at sea before returning to land.
While docked at Benoa Harbor, Hadi 'Banol' Sultoni, captain of the Permata 32 fishing vessel, revealed the changes he had witnessed in recent years.
'As an old-timer, I've always looked to the weather. These months, it would typically be dry, but then there's a lot of rain. It's unpredictable. We used to reach our target income in eight months. Last year, it took us 12,' he says.
The long duration at sea necessitates that the 18 crew members usually spend most of their time on the sea ' away from their families and miss annual celebrations, like Idul Fitri. This year, their two month break on land fortunately coincided with the major national holiday.
'We've seen waves as high as 7 meters, but facing bad weather is fine because we're seafarers. The biggest difficulty these days is not getting enough catch,' said Sutrisno, the Permata 32's deputy captain.
Using modern satellite technology, sailors can access global meteorology information and divert their course to avoid storms up to a week in advance. It is through satellite phone that Banol regularly reports the boat's position and is able to contact his wife.
'To keep entertained during the voyage, we pray, read magazines and watch films,' Sutrisno explained, crouching in the low-ceilinged sleeping quarters below deck.
The 53-year-old comes from a family of farmers in Pemalang, Central Java and has been a fisherman for 25 years. 'It's difficult for us to find jobs on land. Parents aren't able to send their children to school beyond junior high school. We work at sea so we're not jobless,' Sutrisno says.
Crew members earn Rp 2 million (US$174) a month, with a bonus of 20 percent of catch profit split among them when they break for their holiday. Among the crew is Sutrisno's 19-year-old son, one of his seven children.
It takes an average 15 days before they reach the fishing grounds in the Indian Ocean below Indonesia, as far as 30 degrees south of the equator (on the same latitude as South Australia).
Their catch includes yellowfin, bigeye and albacore types of tuna species, as well as swordfish. The catch is frozen and compiled by a collecting boat, which brings to the crew fuel, food and other supplies.
The US is Indonesia's largest customer for frozen tuna, with declining stocks of fresh tuna from nearby fishing grounds, reachable in three to five days, mainly being exported for the Japanese auction market.
Early this month, a catch of 120 fresh tuna was offloaded into Intimas' processing warehouse that looks out on dozens of vessels moored in Benoa Harbor.
Company director Ivan Hans Jorgih Amin explained,
'Each fresh fish is graded based on species, size, body defects, texture of the flesh, color and fat content,' said the company's director, Ivan Hans Jorgih Amin.
After being graded, the tuna are then separated and packed into boxes to be sent to Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka in the evening by plane, for auction the next morning.
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.
In Amin's point of view, longer periods of fishing at further distances because of decreasing catch means increased operational costs.
However, the company remains a proponent of Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs), which aims include promoting traceability 'from the hook to the plate', improving catch data reporting and supporting the development of fisheries management plans.
'Other countries, that do not yet take part in FIPs, offer cheaper tuna. But through FIPs we aim to improve the aspects of management, including participating in recording catch for stock assessment, because we want to improve the fishery. The government needs to support companies in the tuna industry who are doing FIP and provide incentives for those yet to join.'
' Photos by Lawrence Lilley
