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Illegal fishing still rife despite Indonesia-Vietnam EEZ
Lack of resources, geopolitical rivalry stand in the way.
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Five fishing boats from Vietnam are lined up to be sunk in an operation carried out by authorities from the Riau Islands prosecutor’s office and the Batam prosecutor’s office. The vessels were caught poaching in the waters off Lesser Momoi Island near Batam on Nov. 21, 2018. (The Jakarta Post/Fadli)
D
espite the December finalization of the Indonesia-Vietnam Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) observers have said that poaching by Vietnamese fishing boats is still rife in some of Indonesia’s most resourceful waters, with government officials asserting that illegal fishing remains Jakarta’s number-one maritime threat in 2023.
Having tracked the movements of Vietnamese fishing boats and Hanoi’s state-owned vessels in the North Natuna Sea since January, Jakarta-based think tank the Indonesia Ocean Justice Initiative (IOJI) said that this year’s movement patterns showed little to no differences compared with the pre-EEZ period.
“The pact should have reduced the number of Vietnamese vessels in these waters, [...] Not much has changed since the demarcation of the EEZ boundaries,” IOJI senior advisor Andreas Aditya Salim told a Monday online discussion.
In December, Jakarta and Hanoi after 12 years of intensive talks finalized the negotiations on the determination of their EEZ boundaries per the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It was hoped the long-awaited pact would reduce conflicts between Indonesian and Vietnamese fishing vessels, as well as improve the maritime security of both countries.
To date, though, the EEZ agreement has yet to be endorsed by Indonesia.
Prior to the agreement, Vietnam and Indonesia had for years struggled to resolve the boundary dispute resulting in numerous conflicts revolving around rogue fishing.
These issues were most rife in the North Natuna Sea, one of Indonesia’s richest maritime areas and which borders Vietnam and Malaysia.
