300 foreign vessels looting North Sumatra fishing areas

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

Around 300 foreign vessels believed to be from Thailand are looting fish stocks in North Sumatran waters and robbing local fishermen of their livelihoods, according to Governor T. Rizal Nurdin.

Rizal urged the central government to take action against the illegal foreign vessels he said were operating off the western coast of North Sumatra.

"The arresting of these fishermen is wholly the responsibility of the Navy," Rizal told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

He said the foreign fleet had been plaguing the local fishing industry for "quite some time", but he fell short of saying how much had been inflicted in losses.

According to government estimates, losses from illegal fishing nationwide could reach up to US$4 billion a year. These were a combination of losses from illegal foreign vessels and the violation of export regulations by local fishing vessels.

Indonesia's own fishing exports stood at just $1.17 billion last year, down slightly from export sales in 2000.

By law, foreign fishing vessels may enter Indonesian waters. However, they must pay a fee to the government.

Government officials said that many foreign vessels purchased fishing licenses from local fishing companies to avoid paying the fee. Many of these local fishing companies were only phony companies, set up as a front to sell permits to foreign vessels.

Secretary to the All-Indonesian Fishermen's Union (HNSI), Sibolga Kastamansyah, said the organization frequently informed the government about the presence of illegal foreign vessels in North Sumatran waters.

"But we haven't seen any results. Neither has any concrete actions been taken by the authorities," he said.

Kastamansyah said the vessels from Thailand had been operating in their area for several years without interference from the government.

Using trawls, the illegal vessels not only catch mature fish but immature fish, thus effectively cutting supply to unsustainable levels.

"We feel that the lot of the fisherman is getting worse by the year," Kastamansyah said.

Last year, Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Rokhmin Dahuri said his office had prepared a set of measures to curb illegal fishing by foreign vessels.

Among the measures was the registering of fishing vessels operating here and the use of tracking devices through a satellite link to filter out illegal vessels from the legitimate ones.

This way, he said, he expected to reduce by 25 percent the 4,900 fishing vessels that were operating illegally in Indonesian waters.