7/2002: Showcase of Indonesian and Australian fisheries research

MEDIA RELEASE

Fisheries Showcase to highlight 20 years of achievment

A Showcase of cooperative research in fisheries management and aquaculture will be held on Wednesday this week in Jakarta.  The Showcase, jointly sponsored by the Ministry for Marine Affairs and Fisheries, and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research is being held at the Hotel Bumikarsa.

The Minister for Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Mr Rokhmin Dahuri and Australian Ambassador Mr Richard Smith will jointly open the Showcase.  Also speaking will be Dr Indroyono Soesilo, Director General of the Agency for Marine Fisheries Research and ACIAR Deputy Director Mr Michael Brown.

ACIAR is part of Australia’s official development assistance program and reports to the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs.  ACIAR funds and manages collaborative research and development projects in agriculture and natural resource management, targeting priority research and development issues in Indonesia and providing Indonesian researchers with the opportunity to work in partnership with their Australian counterparts. 

Capture fisheries and aquaculture are important industries for Indonesia, but are increasingly under threat from overfishing, diseases and falling productivity.  Working together through a series of ACIAR-funded projects, project staff from both countries are delivering a range of benefits and potential solutions to the issues threatening the long-term viability of the fishing industries in Indonesia. 

The Showcase features aquaculture projects focussed on solving disease, environmental and production barriers to successful fish-farming.  These include a project that is producing the first healthy prawns farmed in almost three years, after a long period of disease wiping out whole hatcheries.  The environmental problems created by shrimp farming in acidic soils are also being overcome through project work in Sulawesi.  Researchers at the Gondol laboratory of the Central Research Centre for Aquaculture have proven so successful in rearing grouper from eggs that the process is now spreading throughout backyard hatcheries.

Projects on sustainable management of capture fisheries are also featured in the Showcase.  Projects to improve the management of shared Indonesian and Australian red and gold-band snapper resources and shark and ray fisheries are improving management options, and discovering new species.  Another featured project on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the Sulawesi Sea has resulted in the development of a world-first management agreement between Indonesia and the Philippines.

Project leaders from these Indonesia and Australia will talk about these projects and the achievements to date as well as the long-term benefits arising from this work.  An exhibit of project material will also be open.

“Today’s Showcase is an important example of the benefits of cooperation between Indonesia and Australia,’ said Australian Ambassador Mr Richard Smith.  “Some of the best examples of sustainable fisheries management through cooperative research by Indonesian and Australian scientists are included in the Showcase.