Jakarta, March 24 (Antara) - Over seven million traditional fishermen
living in the country's coastal areas remain poor even though the
government has launched a fisheries industrialization program aimed at
making the development of the fishery sector a success.
"Traditional fishermen have been in the poor condition since Indonesia
gained its independence and since the declaration of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDG)," Abdul Halim, secretary general of the
People's Coalition for Fishery Justice (Kiara), said on Sunday.
Kiara urged the government to give serious attention to traditional
fishermen as they remained poor amid the implementation of its fish
industrialization program.
He said that the government regulations issued to speed up
industrialization program in the fishery sector had failed to improve
the welfare of traditional fishermen.
In efforts to develop the fishery sector, the government has issued two
regulations last year, namely Maritime and Fisheries Minister's
Regulation No. 12/2012 On Catching Fisheries at High Seas and Regulation
No. 30/2012 On Catching Fisheries in Indonesia's Fishing Management
Areas.
These regulations are intended to encourage domestic investors to fish
at high seas and to increase fish production and improve the people's
welfare. Investors are also encouraged to tap fish potentials in
economic exclusive zones (EEZ).
Maritime and Fisheries Affairs Ministry's Secretary General Gellwynn
Jusuf said Regulation No. 30/2012 was better than the previous
regulations because it would speed up the industrialization program in
the fish catching sector. It allows the procurement of old and new
fishing boats both from home and from abroad.
Through the regulation, the government also provides additional
allocation of port utilization for production loading and unloading
activities. This will support fish processing and fish export.
However, the People's Coalition for Fishery Justice (Kiara) said the
regulations had no impact on small fishermen. It had no impact so that
traditional fishermen remained poor.
He cited as an example fishermen in Marunda, North Jakarta. He said
that fishermen in Marunda spent 70 - 85 percent of their income to only
to meet the need for feeding their families. They can only spend about
30 to 15 percent of their income to send children to school and to meet
their fishing needs.
Fishermen became poorer and poorer due to increased cost for fishing
while the volume of their catching was uncertain, he said.
At the same time fish sources were declining as a result of the high
rate of pollution in the Jakarta Bay which was the most heavily polluted
waters in Asia, according to Abdul.
He said that based on data available at the Maritime and Fisheries
Ministry in 2011 there were 7.87 million poor fishermen living in
coastal areas. The number of poor fishermen represented the biggest
percentage or about 25.14 percent of the country's poor people which
totaled 31.02 million
Abdul said that poor fishermen lived in
10,600 fishermen villages in various parts of the country. "The poor
condition is a result of the lack of protection by the government over
the sources of their income, namely healthy coast and sea waters," he
said.
He said that traditional fishermen faced four basic problems in ther
period of pre-production, during production, fish processing and
marketing.
In the pre-production, fishermen face increasing difficulties in having
access to the sea due to the increasing rate of coastal reclamation and
mangrove conservation. In production, they face shortage of capital to
meet their fishing needs, scarcity of fuels, and absence of health and
life protection. In the processing, they also face problem because the
volume of their production is small and lack of raw fish. Marketing is
another problem where access to the market has so far been monopolized
by middlemen.
"The government's industrialization program in the fishery sector which
is aimed to increase added values and competitive edge has no effect on
traditional fishermen. It does not touch the village of traditional
fishermen," Abdul said.
He said that about 98 percent of Indonesian fishermen were small scale
and traditional fishermen but its contribution to the country was big.
Thus, the Ministry of Maritime and Fisheries needed a political will to
develop them.
He said that the conversion of coastal areas into industrial-based
spaces had also deprived fishermen of their rights to go fishing. Thus,
he said, the interest in the conversion of coastal areas into
industrial-based spaces was bigger than the interest of poverty
alleviation program.
Earlier, Maritime and Fisheries Affairs Minister Sharif Cicip Sutardjo
said that the Minister's Regulation No. 30 / 2012 on Fish Catching
Business would accelerate the industrialization process of catching
fisheries.
"This regulation is better than the previous regulation. This would
accelerate catching fishery industrialization process. It allows the
procurement of new and old fishing boats from home or abroad with enough
and bigger sizes," Minister Sharif said.
He said that the minister's regulation would be able to boost the
development of fishermen's economy through a regulation requiring them
to develop an integrated catching fish business.
The minister said earlier that the maritime and fisheries sector was
predicted to contribute 7.5 percent to the country's Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) in 2014.
The target is set to improve the welfare of traditional fishermen, Sharif Cicip Sutardjo.
The target is 0.77 percent higher than that of this year, Sharif said.
He said the country fishery production is projected at 22.39 million
tons in 2014 including 5.50 million tons from sea fishing and and 16.89
million tons from fish breeding farms.
He said the country's fish consumption per capita that year is expected to reach 38 kg.
"With improved performance, cases of Indonesian fish exports being
rejected abroad could be reduced to less than 10 cases," he said, giving
no figure for such cases before than year.***3***
(T.A014/b003/B003)
(T.A014/A/A. Abdussalam/Bustanuddin) 24-03-2013 16: |
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar