A Better Fishing Industry: Maluku Islands

By Barrie | August 27th, 2007 | No Comments

Southeast Maluku regency is has long been known as a fishing center in eastern Indonesia and a base for foreign and local fishing boats. But only around 20 fishing vessels dock at the National Fishing Harbor in the regency’s capital Tual.

Spanning 24,655 square kilometers and consisting of more than 100 islands, the regency is rich in marine potentials because of its strategic location between the Banda and Arafura seas (deep and shallow seas).

These waters contain unlimited marine products and species, including the blue fin tuna, a main export commodity to Japan.

Southeast Maluku’s fishing industry is quite large and is supported by the National Fishing Harbor, a fish auction facility and a domestic port, as well as the Tual Fishery State Polytechnic.

But this doesn’t mean the regency generates the income it needs to boost its revenue.

Based on Government Regulation No. 104/2000 on balancing shared funds, the state controls a large share of a regency’s income.

The regency considers Maluku provincial ordinance No. 15/2004 on tax as partial because regencies and mayoralties only receive 20 percent of revenue — 80 percent is allocated to the provincial administration.

In addition to this seemingly unfair distribution of generated revenues, the regency is terribly affected by illegal fishing.

Vice Regent Lambertus Nuhuyanan said the regency would concentrate on four primary sectors — fishing, tourism, trade and transportation — in its development program, toward which fishing provides the lion’s share of revenue.

“However, foreign fishermen have exploited most of our marine wealth using modern fishing equipment,” Nuhuyanan said.

Large-scale fishing companies dominate the area’s fishing resources for the export market and traditional fishermen are unable to compete due to a lack of deep water fishing equipment.

Nuhuyanan said the administration had yet to empower the community optimally to benefit from potential marine wealth. He said this was because local fishermen did not have the skills required to operate modern fishing technologies.

“We have a very limited number of skilled workers,” he said.
“We wish to provide modern equipment but our people still lack the knowledge and this eventually restricts us from acquiring modern equipment,” he said.

The fishing harbor also lacks cold storage and has a too-small landing measuring 120 meters long and six meters wide.

An ideal length for the Tual fish harbor would be 300 meters long and 15 meters wide.

Most of the fishing vessels that range from 150 to 200 dead-weight tons cannot dock at the harbor.

Nuhuyanan said weak law enforcement and the absence of a fishery court in Tual did nothing to discourage widespread illegal fishing activities.

He said suits against illegal fishing that had been carried out in Tual or Ambon district courts to-date had not been resolved.

“But a fishery court can handle illegal fishing cases promptly by handing down stern decisions,” he said.

Despite being faced with many problems, Nuhuyanan said the developing regency was still reliant on fishing.

To boost productivity in the fishery sector, the regency administration has provided facilities including fishing boats and equipment, loans and training workshops.

But certain species of commercial fish have been overfished due to rampant illegal fishing and local community empowerment programs are needed to preserve resource sustainability.

The potentials of marine cultivation around Kei Islands, especially Kei Kecil are yet to be realized.

And the local administration has long encouraged pearl cultivation on Uhiwa, Thoroa and Like islands.

Nuhuyanan said with government facilitation, the welfare of the community would gradually improve and people would adopt a more professional approach toward their natural resources.

He said his administration was currently making efforts to boost the productivity of traditional fishing and fish cultivation by developing a number of breeding locations in Taar village, Dullah Utara district.

The aim is to breed high economic value marine commodities, including oysters, sea cucumbers and groupers.

“People will benefit from the program in the next three to four years,” Nuhuyanan said.

“By cultivating primary commodities, we are certain that it would not be difficult to market the products domestically or overseas.”

A number of coastal communities have been sporadically cultivating seaweed through government or privately sponsored programs.

“With good training and skills, it wouldn’t be impossible for this regency to progress extraordinarily,” he said.

M. Azis Tunny