Aceh's traumatized fishermen coaxed back to the tranquil sea
Aceh's traumatized fishermen coaxed back to the tranquil sea
Karima Anjani, Reuters/Banda Aceh
The damage to the important fishing industry in Indonesia's
tsunami-hit Aceh province could be lighter than was feared but
many fishermen have suffered deep trauma, U.N. officials said on
Thursday.
Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island bore the brunt of
the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami, which displaced 400,000
people and left 240,00 dead or listed as missing.
Nerves are still raw in the devastated province and people ran
into the streets in panic and prayed earlier on Thursday when one
of the many aftershocks still being felt rattled Aceh.
The quake, measured at 5.9 on the Richter scale and centred
about 85 km (53 miles) south of the provincial capital Banda
Aceh, interrupted a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
briefing for local officials and non-government organizations.
Figures released on Thursday showed that 6,611 fishermen, or
almost 11 percent of the total number on Aceh's east coast, were
killed. Numbers for the west coast are yet to be compiled but are
expected to be much higher.
Some 5,224 boats, or 46 percent of the fleet, were destroyed
or lost on the east coast.
"The damage is bad, but not as bad as had been anticipated,"
FAO fisheries adviser Uli Schmidt told Reuters.
"We have some figures which have been published by other
agencies which talked of some areas in the east coast of losses
of 100 percent," Schmidt said. "But if you go there you find
plenty of fishing boats of different sizes are still there."
FAO headquarters in Rome later put the total damage bill to
the fisheries sector in the seven Indian Ocean nations worst
affected by the tsunami at $520 million.
It said 111,073 fishing boats had been damaged or destroyed,
putting a huge strain on regions like Aceh where fishing is a
vital source of food and income.
Until the tsunami, Aceh and nearby Nias island had a vibrant
fishing industry with an annual output 158,578 tonnes in 2003,
made up of 133,976 tonnes of fish caught at sea and 24,602 tonnes
harvested from aquaculture.
Total annual value of production was estimated at 1.59
trillion rupiah ($171 million), with the sector accounting for
for 6.5 percent of Aceh's GDP.
Aceh had only one medium-size fish-canning facility and most
of the fish caught were consumed by seafood-loving Acehnese or
exported unprocessed overseas or to other parts of the country.
The value of government and private infrastructure in the
sector before the tsunami is estimated at 1.9 trillion rupiah.
"I think the impact will be much more severe in the west
coast, but what we're having at the moment is a deep trauma by
many fishermen," Schmidt said.
Despite the tsunami's horror, officials said getting back to
work was one of the main priorities for Aceh's residents,
including more than 400,000 living in makeshift camps.
They believed it was only a matter of time before fishermen
got over their fears and returned to the now tranquil sea.
"It would be, for example, not very good to try to make them
into something else other than fishermen," Schmidt said.
"I think they should go back fishing, and we should provide
them with the means to do so," he said.
Officials like FAO master fisherman Robert Lee said the
reconstruction of the fisheries sector would take several years
because of the poor quality of boats and the lack of structure in
the industry even before the disaster.
One of the most important goals would be to extend the average
lifespan of the wooden boats to about 10 years from the current
five or six, Lee said.
Materials used to rebuild them would be sourced locally to
boost the resource-rich but underdeveloped province's economy.
"I wouldn't pretend that we can do this immediately. Even if
there's not an emergency, this whole intervention would take
time," Lee said.
($1 = 9,295 rupiah)
REUTERS
GetRTR 3.00 -- FEB 17, 2005 19:49:03