The United States Agency for International Development and an Indonesian fishery group have teamed up to fight illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, ANTARA News reports.
USAID is normally regarded as the group that provides food or other types of aid to impoverished nations at times of crisis, but it also has partnered with Asia fishing groups to promote sustainable fisheries and marine biodiversity. It’s working with Yayasan Masyarakat dan Perikanan Indonesia (MDPI), the Indonesian society and fisheries foundation, a group that promotes sustainable fishing, to install a new catch documentation and traceability system.
Test sites are being planned for Bitung, a town of nearly 200,000 on the northern coast of the island of Sulawesi, and will focus on tuna, according to the Indonesian news service.
USAID first mentioned the Indonesia program was under development back in May.
Indonesia provided 25% of the world’s tuna supply in 2015, but it struggles with illegal fishing, according to ANTARA. The country saw 1.6 million metric tons of fish illegally caught in the first eight months of 2014, or 182t per day, costing it IDR 101 trillion ($7.6 billion). Fishing boats from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China are all among the culprits, the Indonesian news service reports.
Indonesia president Joko Widodo talked about the problem in a speech last week in Jakarta, noting how his government continues to sink foreign vessels found fishing illegally in the Indonesian waters”.
2017 Undercurrent News