In April, I made a site visit to Demak. The visit was facilitated by the BSC Team of the Diponegoro University and was also accompanied by 28 persons representing the provincial Marine and Fisheries Office, Provincial Legal Bureau, District fisheries office, the University and BSC fishing community. The focus of the visit was on BSC stock enhancement.
The whole team went by 2 fishing boats to the Betahwalang village BSC Conservation Site in, which was initially built in 2013 by means of a community agreement, then followed by the formal issuance of a Village regulation.
As part of the Crab Council’s evolving approach to enhancement, discussion centred on developing accurate measures for the enhancement’s efficacy including distribution, tagging, growth, genetic aspects and meat quality.
The BSC Science-Business Forum was held in Bogor, 17-18th April and hosted by SFP/Rockefeler Foundation. The NFI Crab Council was requested to chair two initial sessions which include science, policy, industry and current stock assessment of Indonesia’s BSC. This forum suggested a level of integration throughout the BSC fisheries in Indonesia, where industry, government, academia and NGOs are actively involved.
In addition, there was a consensus that the Ministerial Decree on BSC fisheries management plan, which encompasses harvest size limits and bans trawl-like gears, needs to be effectively implemented. First, the industry/ association should only consider taking crabs of 10cm and above carapace width and non-berried female. Second, the government should improve fishery communication and ensure sufficient law enforcement.
On the latter, the forum agreed to further integrate local government, specifically the provincial government, in the fisheries management process. This is because under the current local autonomy, they are the authority that have the resources to implement and enforce the law. On-going provincial engagement was developed for four provinces, i.e. Lampung, Central Java, Southeast Sulawesi and East Java.
APRI held its 1st Quarterly meeting of the year in Surabaya, April 29th. I gave a presentation on the Control Document Audit system and modifications being made that will improve the system’s robustness and management. Regarding enhancement, I spoke on the need to have an independent, scientific review of the potential for using enhancement/hatchery methodology to improve spawning stocks and crab fisheries.