A review of Indonesia's Indian Ocean tuna fisheries and extension of catch monitoring at the key off-loading ports

• Research Centre for Capture Fisheries, Indonesia
• Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia

As Australia and Indonesia work with the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) to develop and improved understanding of the tuna fisheries of the northeast Indian Ocean, the need became urgent to determine the status of Indonesia's tuna fisheries. Little was known about Indonesia's total catch or key parameters such as catch per unit effort and size distribution of catches, information that is essential to any assessment of the sustainability of current catch levels.
In 2000 Indonesian and Australian scientists discussed ways to collaborate in managing tuna and billfish stocks in their shared region. They agreed that the best approach would be to cooperate through institution building, technical cooperation, training and skill sharing, and developing capacity by improving practices and procedures for data management and reporting in support of fisheries management. As a foundation for this process this 18-month study was conducted.

The main objective of the study was to produce a country tuna fishing status report on Indonesian tuna fisheries in the Indian Ocean, The study also aimed to build capacity to enable Indonesia to administer and undertake its own data collection and stock assessments for tuna and billfish species.

The first stage was a planning workshop to clarify the structure of the project, the role of each organisation involved, the procedures and information to be collected for the country report, the design and implementation protocol for catch monitoring, and the development of formal links with the National Fisheries Stock Assessment Committee of Indonesia.

To prepare the country report, the researchers collected and evaluated existing data, and visited major fishing ports to investigate fishing, processing, local markets and airfreight. They developed a system for the collection, storage and analysis of all catch data from the longline fleets operating out of Benoa in Bali, and Muara Baru and Cilicap in Java.The report covered both commercial and artisanal fisheries, describing their nature, geographic extent and commercial orientation; it also included an evaluation of existing data collection systems. The report recommended strategies for improving quality of data on size of catch, effort involved, how data is collected and procedures for monitoring catches.

The monitoring program developed infrastructure and databases to collect, store and analyse catch data of longline fisheries operating from Benoa, Muara Baru and Cilicap-the main industrial Indian Ocean ports.

Country tuna status report

Through reviews of literature, discussions and workshops with a broad range of stakeholders (including government fishery managers, scientists and peak industry bodies) and analysis of historical data, the project produced a Country Status Report. This examines the extent and accuracy of Indonesia's tuna fishery data for the Indian Ocean, and the existing systems for data collection and reporting on tuna fisheries at district, provincial and national levels, for industrial and (to a lesser degree) artisanal fisheries. It is clear that the current systems for fisheries data collection and reporting were designed primarily to provide national production statistics, not for science-based stock assessments to support sustainable management of stocks at a species level.

The Country Status Report found a number of deficiencies in the Indonesia's fishery data/statistics that severely limit their usefulness for stock assessment. For example, catch is most often not recorded at the species level, and for national statistics all the Thunnus species are lumped under the single category-'tuna'. There is also significant duplication in catch and fleet operations data collected and reported at different levels of government, and inadequate effort is made to validate the accuracy of these data.

The report makes recommendations on ways in which these shortcomings can be overcome. It recommends a high-level working group be formed to:
Determine the resources required at provincial, district, and sub-district level to enable adequate coverage by surveys of catch and fleet, both in geographical and temporal terms.
Investigate how the various port offices (WASKI, Port Authority) and Government fisheries offices (district and provincial) can be better coordinated to reduce duplication of effort and make most efficient use of available resources.
Investigate ways to reduce any duplication of effort between the branches of Central Bureau of Statistics, and those of the Directorate General of Capture Fisheries (DGCF).
Ensure consistency in the type and quality of data collected between provincial, district and local systems.

that the government examine options for separating the data collection systems used by District government (or other offices) to calculate the amount of tax payable by fishing companies, from the systems/procedures used to compile fisheries statistics, or at least improve validation of catch data at the source of collection. The data collection and validation systems should be built on a partnership between Government and industry, and include incentives for compliance with regulations at the same time as penalties for non-compliance.

They also recommended that regulations be introduced that enforce accurate and prompt reporting of catch by fishing companies. To improve the efficiency and accuracy of data collection systems, and ensure that the data collected is useful for stock assessments, they recommended that catch sampling/catch surveys include separation of tuna species and increased rigour in the validation of catch data.

The review paper recognised the significant improvements made by DGCF in recent years in the registration of vessels, removal of FOC (foreign owned company) vessels, and in the enforcement of government regulations. However, to correct the inconsistencies in the recording of vessel activity and registration, it was recommended that vessel registry licensing systems, both at the National (currently for vessels > 30 gross tonnes), and Provincial (vessels < 30 gross tonnes) levels be reviewed.

Catch monitoring

The project successfully established a monitoring program at the three major ports at which tunas and billfishes are landed by Indonesia's Indian Ocean industrial longline fishery. The program meets the requirements of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission for reporting of species and size composition of Indonesia's tuna and billfish catches. Capacity to collect and manage tuna fisheries data involved developing a team of trained enumerators from the Research Institute for Marine Fisheries (RIMF) to sample catches at the point of landing/processing in each port and a vessel activity logging program run by the port authority or WASKI, both supported by a unified database-WinTuna, enabling centralisation of all information collected.