On September 5th, The University of Diponegoro (UNDIP) hold a Senate meeting where Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Ms Susi Pudjiastuti, was a key speaker. She emphasized the role Indonesia, as a major maritime state, needs to play in ensuring fishery sustainability, securing livelihoods and maintaining national sovereignty. She also underlined Indonesia’s achievements in addressing IUU fishing, and current fisheries improvement efforts for tuna, blue swimming crab and reef fishes. She highly lauded efforts by UNDIP, the NFI Crab Council and APRI to sustainably manage the BSC in Betahwalang Demak through an inclusive, collaborative approach. The Ministry will further facilitate BSC fisheries management effort in reviewing and publishing “Architecture of Indonesian Fisheries Management,” a Ministerial Decree which formulates a national sustainability framework.
On September 9th, the Provincial Marine and Fisheries Service meeting of East Java held a meeting in Surabaya. Myself, Dr. Hawis of APRI and Dessy of Sustainable Fisheries Partnership reminded participants about the necessity of BSC sustainability, including provincial legal support to ensure existing regulation on size limits and trawl-use is sufficiently enforced. Provincial Marine and Fisheries positively responded to collaborate on management of the BSC fishery in the West Java Province and is expected to propose an allocation of funds for that purpose in the next provincial budgeting cycle.
In the Collaborative meeting on BSC fishery management of Central Java in Demak, I delivered a power point presentation on the necessity of BSC sustainability, including provincial legal support to ensure existing regulation is sufficiently enforced. A revised draft of the decree which also include an action plan shall be made available by the first week of October and to be discussed by mid October 2016.