Almost 10 percent of shrimp ponds damaged: Official

JAKARTA (JP): This year's severe drought and industrial pollution have damaged almost 10 percent of Indonesia's shrimp ponds, Director General of Fishery Muchtar Abdullah says.

He told reporters here yesterday that his office has assigned a special task force to investigate the seriousness of the damages.

He explained that most of the damaged ponds are located in West, Central and East Java.

In West Java alone, the affected shrimp ponds reached at least 1,500 hectares as of February and caused losses of about Rp 1.14 billion (US$542 million).

Latest data from the Central Bureau of Statistics show that total shrimp ponds in the country equal 309,247 hectares.

Muchtar said that the special task force, consisting of shrimp and environment experts from the Ministry of Agriculture and various universities, has been conducting intensive field studies since early last month.

The ultimate goal of the task force is to give input to various ministries on the need to form a comprehensive master plan so that environmental damages can be minimized amid the process of economic development.

Shrimp has been one of Indonesia's major earners of foreign exchange from exports. Last year the country exported about 98,569 tons of shrimp worth $871.5 million which amounted to about 2.37 percent to the country's total export of $36.82 billion or about 31.2 percent of its total agricultural exports of $2.64 billion.

Muchtar said about 60 percent of the country's shrimp exports go to Japan.

"We are still investigating how bad the damages are," Muchtar added. "We do not rule out the possibility that the damages will get more serious later this year."

The Ministry of Agriculture had projected that shrimp production this year will increase by 12.52 percent to 110,910 tons from 98,569 tons last year.(hdj)