A summary list of the principal development activities is presented in Annex G. The time series interrelationships of these activities are also proposed.
The development potential of cage culture of marine finfishes in Indonesia (Sec. 3.5 refers) and its future role in the betterment of the needy coastal communities, must be guided and controlled by a new policy at the national level. By this policy the fisheries authority must by necessity be granted additional powers to ensure the proper conduct of conflicting activities to grant legal rights to the producer to his facility and his fish, and to conserve areas of development potential and also resources relevant to the future development of this new aquaculture sector.
Being a prerequisite to all other development undertakings, this policy should be identified as soon as possible.
This should be carried out as soon as a national policy is accepted and enforced. Development planning should be based on identifiable goals while taking into consideration the need of the betterment and development of supporting infrastructure, and the total government inputs within a given time span. It should also identify all weaknesses and strengths currently existing in the country's fisheries situations, and the need for additional inputs.
A realistically identified development plan is essential to guide and control all subsequent activities. It also justifies the need for cooperation with other authorities directly or indirectly concerned with the common use of the sea and its adjacent foreshore, and also with other activities involving the resources and well-being of the seas around the country.
As soon as a development plan is identified and enforced, there is the need to facilitate the implementation of this plan through the creation of a new organization under the fisheries authority initially serving as a core and eventually enlarging on its staff and other resources to be fully functional in the implementation of the plan.
Among other circumstances, the marketing system and the basic essential supporting infrastructure play a key role in the well-being of any fishery. The experiences gained within the limited time spent in the field have invariably indicated that these fishery aspects in the country indeed need urgent review and, in cases of failures or successes, considerable amount of soul-searching for their reasons.
These undertakings should be carried out as soon as possible as an ongoing exercise. A Standing Committee reporting directly to the Directorate-General of Fisheries and having direct development responsibility in these areas will be a benefit.
Culture trials at the five sites should be initiated as soon as possible and subsequent to the formulation of a development plan. Urgent action is favoured in view of the time required to set up pilot culture farms, and the associated staffing and other logistics, including:
facility acquisition and construction;
acquisition of fish seedlings;
organization of farm operation: staffing, task identification, work schedule, culture management training and associated arrangements and preparations; and
record keeping arrangement.
The results of culture trials will provide data for the formulation of culture management scheme and production programmes for the subsequent commercial development of this new aquaculture sector.
The need to build up a functional core technical staff is a prerequisite to subsequent successful development of fish cage culture. A programme involving overseas and in-service training would pave the way in the attainment of this goal.
At the same time, the need for information on which development actions and decisions can be based, must be considered in the development planning programme. In this connection, national programmes involving both applied and the required basic research should be realistically identified, implemented, and coordinated to facilitate the accelerated development of culture systems on the one hand and to enable the attainment of development goals set for the national development plan on the other.
To enable advancements in development, and in addition to technical inputs and associated considerations, it is a prerequisite requirement that the following administrative inputs be given immediate actions:
a reorganization of the existing marketing system and the supporting infrastructure concerned with both post-harvest and socio-economic promotion, should be made with a view to improving upon the current situations;
to protect the interest of the future culturists, it is essential that at the national level such interest should be legally recognized and protected; in this consideration it is therefore essential that seafarming legislation be created as soon as possible; and
in the formulation of such a legislation, the fisheries authority must be given equal authority to involve in national decision making directly or indirectly concerned with the sea, its resources and its utilization; this would require standing coordination with other authorities concerned with, for example, fossil fuel production, navigation and other authorities directly or indirectly concerned with the sea and its well-being.
From the results of the pilot culture trials, and with the support of redeveloped facilities, a review of the original development plan should be made with a view to ensuring the relative reliability of the pre-set development goals and the necessary tasks and strategies to reach such goals.
Commercial-scale development of cage culture must take into consideration:
the rate of increase in the number of commercial units;
the availability of fry and fingerling supply of the desirable culture species;
the minimal impact on the value of the fisheries to be utilized as feeds;
the location of commercial units in predetermined areas/ sites whose suitability has already been established for development planning purposes; and
the need to have forward planning on both the future supply and demand trend, and realistic production programmes.
This is to enable orderly development with the least impact on the anticipated level of profit on the one hand and the well-being of the aquatic environment on the other. In order to ensure orderly and manageable development, it is suggested that the development of commercial-scale culture should be phased out in accordance with the availability of the necessary resources.
A representative inventory of the basic information on the biological and economical aspects of this new aquaculture sector should be kept to serve as a reliable source of data, on which future development actions could be reliably based.
The right of a fishfarmer to his fish and his facilities is the most basic and yet complicated legal problem presently confronting the development of cage culture of marine finfishes as a whole. The common problems of poaching and sabotage, and the legal concept of the ownership of the wild fish and the sea, are conflicting issues that could only be resolved by granting legal rights to the fishfarmer and his properties.
Included in this legislation should also be provisions to protect the fishfarmer from losses arising from man-made and natural causes, and to preserve the long-term productivity of identifiable growout, and spawning and nursery grounds of fisheries of development value and/or potential.
The control of oil spillage and its clean-up operations, the maintenance of an acceptable level of pollution, the acquisition of exclusive rights to potential sea areas for development, and a number of other associated problems will be additional responsibilities to be vested with the fisheries authority by virtue of his role as the controller of this legislation.
There will be a standing need for information for decision-making at both the administrative and technical level in the development of this new aquaculture sector. Research as a tool in the acquisition of such information will play an important part of this development. It is however, important that research programmes should be identified with development needs. Equal emphasis should therefore, be given to both applied and basic research for both government fisheries and academic institutions. Ideally, all research programmes are designed around a central theme and applied and basic research are complementary.
In the formulation of a national seafarming development plan, legislation, research programmes and other associated supporting activities, it is essential that responsible national authorities and institutions should be adequately coordinated with a view to arriving at a common agreement to assist in the development of seafarming the way that it should be done. The coordination of all these authorities and institutions under the chairmanship of the Directorate-General of Fisheries or his designate would appear to be the most appropriate arrangement.
To facilitate the initiation of cage culture development the creation of a core group of functional personnel should be an activity of high priority. This core group should provide the initial personnel capacity in handling farm management, as well as the whole range of tasks of a production farm (Chan 1981b). It should also be capable of participating in the planning and the subsequent implementation of production and marketing programmes.
Another core group of functional personnel to be responsible for extension, market development, product development, regulatory work, and coordinating research and development programmes, is also vitally essential. It should also be created as soon as possible.
The creation of functional personnel cannot be achieved by study tours alone, and emphasis should also be given to on-the-job training and attachment programmes in experimental/commercial farms of similar circumstances in the region.
One of the main constraints (Chan 1981b) in cage culture is the uncertainty in the supply of the seeds of fishes of culture value. Priority should be given to the location and quantification of these resources with a view to identifying their occurrence and quantity in time and space. This information should lead to the creation of national and/or provincial fish seed collecting programmes.
As seedling resources are developed, there will be the need to create national and/or provincial fish seed holding centres. Each centre should have the dual function of supplying low-cost fish seeds to pilot and commercial farms, and undertaking nursery and quarantine work to ensure optimal survival rate of the fish seed.
The development of both fish seed resources and fish seed centres is also an urgent task. This is also an essential activity having both short and long-term significance to the development of this new aquaculture sector.
