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The IOTC-OFCF Project Manager (Mr Koichi Sakonju) and the IOTC Secretariat (Mr Miguel Herrera), visited Indonesia from the 14–19 July 2014 and held discussion with the Directorate General of Capture Fisheries of Indonesia concerning the Pilot Activities for which the IOTC-OFCF Project and the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystems Project (BOBLME) are providing support.
The main objective of the Pilot Activities, which cover the provinces of North Sumatra and West Sumatra, is to strengthen the capacity of the DGCF to comply with provisions detailed in IOTC Resolution 11/03 On a Regional Observer Scheme, and 10/02 On Mandatory statistical requirements for IOTC Members and Cooperating Non-Contracting Parties (CPC's), in particular provisions in those Resolutions concerning minimum levels of sampling of coastal fisheries by enumerators, and reporting of catch and effort and length frequency data from those fisheries.
The Pilot activities discussed include the implementation of sampling in up to 10 landing locations in the Provinces of North and West Sumatra, to cover artisanal and semi-industrial fisheries that operate both in the Indian Ocean and the Malacca Strait. The data collected will be used to assist the DGCF in the strengthening of its data collection and processing systems, in particular modification of DGCF’s sampling design and future implementation of that design over the entire Indian Ocean. In addition, the data collected will be used to estimate catches by gear and species in the locations covered and comparison with the catches reported by the fishing industry, which represent the only data source for catch and effort at the moment.
The BOBLME Project has funded the hiring of a Field Project Coordinator, Dr Guillermo Moreno, who will assist the DGCF in the implementation and supervision of field activities, and 10 new staff, including enumerators and data input staff.
In recent years Indonesia has caught the greatest quantity of the 16 IOTC species combined, in the Indian Ocean, with catch reports well over 300,000 metric tons, or around 25% of the total catches of IOTC species in the Indian Ocean, for all countries, fisheries and species combined. Of particular importance are the catches of juvenile tropical tunas, and neritic tunas, especially frigate tuna, bullet tuna and kawakawa. Indonesia is also the top shark-catching country in the world and many of those catches are taken by its coastal fisheries. The Indonesian authorities believe that these Pilot activities will help to improve the quality of catches and other statistics in the future.