Jakarta, Nov 24 (Antara) - The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (KKP) has claimed to have achieved success in fighting fish poaching in the country's waters, thereby resulting in an increase in fish catch.
While illegal fishing has been drastically reduced, the KKP also made assurance that fish catch transshipment at sea for direct sales overseas has been stopped. All the caught fish will first be taken to the country's fishing ports.
However, this success should also benefit the 7.8 million poor fishermen living in the coastal areas in order to improve their welfare.
The People's Coalition for Fishery Justice (Kiara) has also called on the KKP to pay attention to traditional fishermen in the coastal areas. It should not merely focus on implementing measures to improve fish stocks in the waters but also increase the prosperity of fishermen.
"We need to emphasize that the management of fisheries resources should not be confined to solely handling fish stocks but also protecting and empowering fishermen, so that the well-being of poor fishermen in the coastal areas would be improved," Kiara Secretary General Abdul Halim noted on Monday (Nov. 23).
He remarked that some policies still only benefited a handful of large fishery businesses. The benefit of the policies, such as the imposition of a free import duty on Indonesian fishery products to export destination nations have not yet touched all segments of the fisheries sector in the country.
Kiara has suggested that the Indonesian government should take a cue from Malaysia in formulating a policy on improving the welfare of fishermen.
"Licensed fishermen in Malaysia receive monthly allowance assistance worth 300 ringgit from the state," Halim said during a Marine and Fishery 2015 Evaluation and Projection 2016 in Jakarta early this month (Nov. 2)
Malaysian fishermen also receive fuel oil subsidy for fishing. The subsidy, which is excluded from the cost of allowance from the state, is provided regardless of whether they go fishing. They are also offered free healthcare services at state hospitals. A Malaysian fishery management body also provides up to two thousand ringgit to the families of the deceased fishermen.
"They also get a repair guarantee for their damaged fishing boats," he noted, adding that the Indonesian government could also offer similar benefits to Indonesian fishermen.
Therefore, he remarked that the government's commitment is considered important for helping fishermen and small-scale fishery businesses.
"It is now a fact that market players in the seafood business are still reluctant to take side with small-scale fishery businesses," noted Halim.
He pointed out that small-scale fishery businesses still faced difficulties in being part of the fishery trade system at the national level, let alone at the international level, due to high production costs, lack of technology, and low fish prices.
After all, the status of their fishing areas or cultured fish ponds is not clear whereas the documentation of their catch accessible to consumers is also limited.
Therefore, he emphasized that the state should be involved in facilitating small-scale fishery businesses to overcome the problems being faced by small fishermen and fisherwomen.
"The state must be involved amid stiff competition in fish trade to overcome problems, such as the demand for new production standards, security, and freedom from harmful activities," he said.
Earlier, General Chairman of the Indonesian Fishermen Association (HNSI) Yusuf Solichin had stated that Indonesian fishermen continued to have a low standard of living.
"This is a challenge for all stakeholders to develop the marine and fisheries sector. They should all work together to improve the welfare standards of fishermen," Yusuf said while opening a regional meeting of the HNSI in Ambon, Maluku Province, last month.
Earlier, the government, through the KKP, had encouraged the provision of credits for small and medium-sized fishery businesses (UKM).
"The government is cooperating with banks and financial institutions to provide credits to small fishery businesses," KKP Secretary General Sjarief Widjaja noted.
He said that the problems often faced by UKM in the fishery sector included limited access to capital, weather conditions, low trust of financial institutions, limited information, and absence of collateral.
The government has launched several programs, including micro loans under the smallholders' credit (KUR) scheme, energy and food resilience credit (KKPE) facility, and rotating fund facilities.
"The KUR is a government program supported by seven national banks and several regional banks where the government provides an 80 percent risk cover," he added.
Virtually, the government has launched a program called Fishermen Welfare Improvement Program (PKN) since 2011.
Through the program, the government provided fishing boats to fishermen and developed various fishing facilities such as fish ports.
It provided fishing ships with a tonnage of more than 30 GT. With these relatively larger boats, fishermen could fish in 100 miles into the sea. Previously, they could only sail as far as 5 to 20 miles and fished only for about one to three days because their ships were previously small.
For example, then KKP minister Sharif Cicip Sutardjo handed over 35 fishing vessels worth Rp45 billion to fishermen groups in the Southeast Sulawesi province. Southeast Sulawesi province is one of the country's biggest catch fish producers.
The fishing ships consisted of 25 units, with a gross tonnage of 30 tons, worth Rp37.5 billion and of 10 units, with a gross tonnage that range between 10 and 30 tons, valued at Rp7.5 billion.
. He also delivered 27 'Inka Minka' fishing boats worth Rp36 billion to fishermen in Aceh Province.
Through the program, the KKP also developed targeted groups of poor fishermen's families (RTS), based near the fishery ports (PP).
According to the ministry's data, it would develop 816 fishery ports under the program, from 2011 until the end of 2014. These PP ports consisted of six ocean-going fishery ports, 14 national fishery ports, 45 coastal fishery ports, 749 ports which serve to land fish catches (PPI) and two privately-run ports.
The government developed 100 PP/PPI in 2011, 400 in 2012, 200 and 116 in 2014.
In total, the PKN program covers 1,426 villages, with 112,037 targeted poor families. ***1***(a014/INE/o001)EDITED BY INE(T.A014/A/BESSR/O. Tamindael) 24-11-2015 14:12: |
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