RI's fisheries diplomacy in Southwest Pacific

Siswo Pramono, Graduate Program, School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra

Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda presented Indonesia's new foreign policy on the Southwest Pacific region at the Australian National University. As outlined in his speech, the policy operates on three levels.

The first is cooperation between Indonesia, East Timor and Australia. The second is the Southwest Pacific Dialogue initiative, involving Indonesia, East Timor, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. And the third is the Pacific Island Forum, which Indonesia has just obtained the status of dialog partner.

This new policy underpins the strategic importance of Indonesia's eastern region, which shares common boundaries with Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Australia. Indonesia's eastern region is home to the largest concentration of Melanesians in the world and could strengthen existing ties between Indonesia and the South Pacific region.

Thus, the issue now is how to implement the new policy on the Southwest Pacific into projects that could benefit Indonesia's eastern provinces.

Fishing could be a useful start for cooperation.

Tuna, especially skipjack, yellowfin and big eye constitutes the largest bioresource of the South Pacific region. Tuna and skipjack are also the main fish caught in West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, Maluku and Irian Jaya.

Taken together, the exclusive economic zones of Indonesia, Australia and the South Pacific island states encompass a total maritime area of more than 42.7 million square kilometers -- which yield more than a million tons of tuna a year.

Indonesia and southern Pacific island states are developing fishing nations. While small-scale fishing accounts for more than 90 percent of total fish caught, industrial fisheries contribute considerably more in terms of value, because they are focused on tuna stocks of high commercial value. Nevertheless, the capacity of Indonesian and southern Pacific fishing fleets to harvest tuna, either by using longliners or purse seine vessels, is quite limited.

In the western and central Pacific Ocean, out of 6.5 million tons of tuna taken by purse seine, Vanatu, the Solomon Islands and Indonesia only catch less than 3 percent. Philippines is the only regional fishing nation able to catch 10.3 percent of the tuna stock.

On the contrary, Japan catches 22.2 percent, Taiwan 21.4 percent, the U.S. 18.7 percent and South Korea 16.2 percent. The region clearly needs to improve the capacity of its coastal and shore-based fishing fleets in order to compete with fishing nations from beyond the region.

Indonesia is nevertheless among the top 10 leading exporters of fish and seafood in the world. In 1998, despite the economic crisis, the gross value of fishing output was US$4.2 billion, of which the value of exports was about $1.6 billion. Canned, fresh and frozen tuna formed an important part of Indonesian exports.

Fishing in Indonesia employs 4.6 million people. However, more than 80 percent of those in the fishing industry live below the poverty line.

Indonesia should follow up its progressive foreign policy on the Southwest Pacific by intensifying "tuna diplomacy". Indonesia, Australia and most of the South Pacific island states are parties to the Law of the Sea Convention and thus share a common view in exploring, exploiting and conserving tuna stocks in the region.

Indonesia should initiate cooperation to enhance the capacity of the shore-based fishing fleets by promoting a regional environment conducive to foreign investment. A comprehensive regional fishing policy is also needed to improve the region's bargaining power when dealing with fishing companies from further afield. While a tuna cartel might be politically hard to attain, better management of the region's fishing industry could improve the economic situation and preservation of tuna fisheries.

Regional cooperation also needs to be promoted to crack down on illegal fishing, which has caused losses to Indonesia that are almost annually equal to its exports.

Australia's role in the region will be central as the main provider of technology and training. Its Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and Australian Center for International Agricultural Research have been helping Indonesia and southern pacific island states with the management of fish stocks to avoid overfishing.

Among important cooperation projects are the terubok fisheries in Sumatra, a tuna baitfish fishery in Ambon, Sulawesi (Manado) and Halmahera (Bacan) and a barramundi fishery in Papua New Guinea. This kind of cooperation must be improved in quality and broadened in its implementation.