Fishermen should have own unions, says NGO activist

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration should accommodate the establishment of fishermen's organizations which would have a strong bargaining position in the determination of the prices of their catch, a non-governmental activist said on Monday.

John Erryson, Program Executive of the Bina Desa Foundation, said fishermen could never escape from poverty and have repeatedly become the victims of middlemen.

"They have always been dependent on others, especially on brokers.

"The city administration should create a market that will include the fishermen's organizations in the establishment of prices," Erryson said.

"Up to now, they only follow the prices set by the brokers."

Bina Desa, a foundation established in 1977, focuses its activities on developing the circumstances of low-income people, including fishermen.

Erryson said it had become public knowledge that traditional fishermen receive a small amount of money from trading because they were financially dependent on middlemen.

"In general, traditional fishermen have only obtained 20 percent from trading of their catch," he said.

Erryson, however, denied that the empowerment of traditional fishermen would mean the eradication of brokers.

"The empowerment of the fishermen is aimed at giving them a larger cut of the trading," he said.

He said the fishermen's lack of business skills, education and financial capital had put them in a non-bargaining position that resulted in unfair incomes.

The imbalance was revealed by head of the program division of the City Fishery Agency, Nugroho Syam Subagio, who said that the 19,425 traditional fishermen in the city received only a small portion of the city's US$124.29 million in fishery exports in 1998, due to the unfair competition.

Nugroho said there were fishermen's groups in the city, but they had no share in setting prices.

"The groups were established to "bridge" the administration and the fishermen, only when the administration distributed funds to them," he said on Monday.

According to data from the agency, there were 22 fishermen's groups around the Pulau Seribu marine resort, Penjaringan and Cilincing districts in North Jakarta.

In September, fishermen at Pulau Seribu established a union to fight against unfair competition brought about by illegal trawling which made it difficult for them to prosper.

Fishermen are now placing their hopes for a better life on President Abdurrahman Wahid's government which has promised to pay serious attention to developing the fishery sector.

Chairwoman of Urban Poor Consortium, Wardah Hafidz, said separately that the new government should prove its commitment by evaluating the newly enacted city master plan which still accommodated private ownership of land and beaches.

"If such a policy still exists, fishermen will always be marginalized, because the authority tends to continue to accommodate businesspeople," she said, while citing the Jakarta Bay's reclamation project in North Jakarta.

Wardah said the authority should give the traditional fishermen greater opportunity and access to the fishery sector. (ind)