The Government of Indonesia, assisted by the United Nations Development Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations have been engaged in a project whose main purpose was to increase foreign exchange earnings from the fishing industry, improve domestic marketing and promote rational utilization of stocks; to provide advisory services in biology, resource management and other appropriate related fields; to implement exploratory fishing operations and monitoring and evaluation of results.
As part of the project operation, FAO assigned Dr Tadashi Yamamoto, a Fishery Statistician, from 1 August 1973 to 30 November 1978, with the following terms of reference:
“to assist with the design and implementation of the fishery census 1973, on which work has already been initiated. As soon as possible (1) review and evaluate the presently existing system concerned with the measurement of all current statistics (landings, fishing effort, utilization and production, prices) necessary for the administration and development of the fisheries in Indonesia; (2) propose and implement improvements to the current system giving special emphasis to sampling techniques and ensuring the continuity over time in the statistics provided by the current system and the revised system respectively; to advise on the design of sample surveys to provide length data, etc., required for stock assessment studies; deal with any other fishery statistical matters as they arise.”
Until recent years fishery statistics available to Indonesia were very limited and in many instances unreliable. This made it extremely difficult to establish a sound national fishery development programme. A fishery census undertaken in 1973 was one of the measures used to remedy such a shortage of fishery statistical data.
The 1973 CBS fishery census took place within the framework of the 1973 agriculture census. However, until this idea was fully accepted by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), there were many problems. According to a national law of statistics, any census in Indonesia should be undertaken by the CBS. With this national policy, the CBS had planned to conduct a population census in 1971 and an agriculture census in 1973 within its first five-year national development programme, which covered the period from 1968 to 1973.
However, the CBS had not planned to conduct a fishery census until September 1970, when such a request was made by the Directorate General of Fisheries (DGF). The plan of taking a fishery census was partly accepted by the CBS in June 1971, as the result of which the CBS agreed to identify all fishing households during the listing phase of the 1971 population census. Nevertheless, a final agreement to take a fishery census to be closely linked with the 1973 agriculture census was reached between the CBS and the DGF in July 1972.
With the above agreement, an attempt was made by the CBS to secure a budget for the fishery census from the National Planning Board (BAPENAS). The CBS efforts were however in vain. As a result, the DGF secured, on behalf of the CBS, a budget amounting to Rp. 15 million (US$ 36 000) for the preparatory work of the fishery census and Rp. 50 million (US$ 120 500) for the actual implementation of the census. For the implementation of the fishery census all budgets were transferred to the CBS.
This shows the difficulty involved when fishery statistic problems are brought before a group not directly involved with fisheries. This is due mainly to the degree of importance of the fisheries to the national economy and also to the absence of international support such as is enjoyed by an agriculture census.
After having experienced many difficulties, which were mostly of an administrative nature, the 1973 census, which is referred to hereunder as the CBS fishery census, was undertaken by the CBS in close collaboration with the DGF.
The CBS fishery census covered primarily marine fisheries and brackishwater culture in Sumatra, Java and Bali, which were considered to be priority areas for the development of Indonesian fisheries. It was observed, however, that the CBS census failed to cover a sufficient number of fishing establishments with powered boats. Furthermore, as the CBS fishery census covered part of Indonesia, i.e., Sumatra, Java and Bali, a sampling frame of the areas not covered by the CBS fishery census was needed in order to set up a complete sampling frame for the design of a new national fishery production survey. As a result, the DGF had to undertake an additional fishery census in 1975, which is referred to hereunder as the DGF fishery census.
