North Maluku, Indonesia is one of the richest fishing grounds in Indonesia. It is located at Indonesia’s northern border region, facing the Pacific Ocean and Palau. In North Maluku fisheries is considered a key blue economy sector in the region, contributing to food security and providing livelihoods to the coastal communities. A new paper co-authored by Ocean Justice and the Blue Economy Research Associate, Dr Senia Febrica, titled “Small-scale fishers’ perception of risks in Indonesia’s cross-border region of North Maluku” has recently been published in Marine Policy journal.
Combining a survey of 300 small-scale fishers living in Tobelo and Morotai with a series of interviews and focus group discussions this paper draw attention to the following key findings:
- In defining what constitutes as a threat to them fishers revealed that threats dimension that they face daily involves a combination of safety of life at sea (or in this instance the lack of it), climate change, and maritime crimes.
- In terms of the safety of life at sea, small-scale fishers identified a range of threats that are common to them such as vessel sunk or capsized during extreme weather conditions, and fire caused by the spill of oil following vessels encountered with high wave.
- Climate change has been identified as posing serious risks to fishers. Fishers are aware of the impacts of climate change on weather pattern, height of wave, and declining fish stocks, and have actively made various adaptation measures to adapt to the changing climate such as: getting insurance, observing weather report, adjusting fishing time in line with the weather report, and building supplementary livelihoods.
- In terms of ocean crimes, destructive and illegal, unreported, unregulated (IUU) fishing has been pointed as a key concern. Fishers made connections between these acts of crimes in their surrounding waterways with the decline of fish stocks and subsequently, their income.
Recommendations from this paper highlight the pressing need to:
(1) provide fishers with access to access to information and meaningful participation in consultation and decision-making processes related to improving fishing safety, climate change, and ocean crimes.
(2) build capacity of fishers to participate in consultation and decision-making processes.
(3) ensure better implementation of government policies such as distribution of subsidised fuel and socialisation of the government Kusuka’s marine insurance to reach more fishers.
(4) improve coordination among Indonesian maritime authorities to provide timely assistance to fishers when they are in distress at sea.