Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 9 • Number 1 • 23rd January 2009

Indonesian Navy Cracks Down on Environment Crime

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Indonesia is clamping down on foreign registered ships suspected of participating in illicit activity, such as illegal fishing and the transportation of illegally harvested timber. Since the beginning of the month, 32 ships - predominantly from Malaysia, the Philippines, China and Thailand - found in the southern Papuan region of the archipelago have been impounded.

Illegal fishing has been an ongoing problem for the Southeast Asian country for many years. The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries estimates that illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in Indonesian waters costs as much as US$2 billion annually. And many believe that numbers are increasing.

The People’s Coalition for Equal Fisheries (KIARA) - a federation of environmental and social groups concerned with the state of the maritime and fishery sectors - says that 764 foreign trawlers suspected of illegal fishing were intercepted by authorities in 2008.

The recent crack-down in Papua is not limited to suspected illegal fishing. Longstanding environmental challenges such as vessels dumping toxic waste, transporting illegally harvested timber, and shipments of illegally mined sand and granite have also been targeted.

Indonesia banned all exports of sand mined in domestic waters in 2003 and sand mined on land in 2007. While a limited number of permits are issued to export Indonesian granite, Navy representative Iskandar Sitompul says that ships they often intercept ships that have not been issued permits.

Authorities seized 21 foreign-registered ships transporting illegally mined materials in 2007.

While many of the vessels intercepted by the Navy are registered in foreign countries, crews are often predominantly Indonesian.

According to the Navy, the seizure of 521 vessels over 2008 resulted in 100 successful prosecutions - and patrolling has been stepped up this year. Nevertheless, environmentalists complain that the government is not committed to tackling environmental problems - particularly those related to fisheries.

The Indonesian government recently announced that it would permit trawling in limited areas off the Bornean state of Kalimantan - a practice that has been banned for three decades. Officials say that controlled trawling will help to reduce illegal fishing by regulating the process.

However, environmentalists rebuff the argument, saying that policies such as these are unsustainable. Critics argue that trade liberalisation policies, such as last year’s Indonesia-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, which exempts 51 Indonesian fishery products from import duties in Japan, and has led to a large increase in exports of Indonesian fish to Japan, are leading to overfishing.

“The Ministry of Fishery and Maritime Affairs in July 2008 targeted an increase in national fish production from 10.42 million tons that year to 12.73 million tons in 2009 in an effort to boost the country’s export profits from fishery products,” says KIARA Secretary-General Riza Damanik. “However, we have ignored the looming threat of a national and global fish crisis due to the depletion of fishery resources.”

Other green groups, charge that Indonesia is not fit to host the upcoming World Ocean Conference - an international gathering of policymakers and scientists - due to its inability to deal with illegal fishing and recent policy decisions to increase quotas in the face of overfishing concerns. The five day World Ocean Conference gets underway on 11 May in the town of Manado in North Sulawesi.

“Navy Impounds 32 Foreign Vessels in Papua Region,” JAKARTA GLOBE, 19 January 2009; “Indonesia to allow trawling despite overfishing fears,” AFP, 15 January 2009; “KIARA warns of national fish crisis,” THE JAKARTA POST, 15 January 2009.