Indonesia has made good progress on its commitment to FAO Agreement on Port States Measures (PSMA) to combat the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in its waters, however, stronger emphasis is needed on empowerment of small-scale fisheries (SSF) to adopt responsible fishing and continuous improvement of Monitoring-Control and Surveillance (MCS) policies enforcement.

The subjects were discussed at the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF) talkshow programme entitled “The Road to 4^th Meeting of the Parties to the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures”. The speakers at the talkshow were Chairperson of the 4^th Meeting of Parties to the PSMA Nilanto Perbowo, MMAF Director of Fishing Ports Tri Aris Wibowo and Muralidharan Chavakat Manghat, Regional Coordinator of FAO Indonesian Seas Large Marine Ecosystem (ISLME) project.

Mr Nilanto explained Indonesia’s commitment to PSMA is reflected through the intersectoral cooperation to monitor activities in the Indonesian waters 24/7, make investment for technological adoption, including promoting Automatic Identification System (AIS) and Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) and take firm actions to IUU fishing, among others, to meet the agreement. “The government (MMAF) is continuously enhancing monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) to meet the international standard,” he said.

“Indonesia is in the right direction. However, more attention should be given to the small-scale fisheries. Monitoring of vessels size

He commended Indonesia’s commitment to continuously improve MCS to combat IUU fishing and explained that MCS implementation also applies to SSF. According to MMAF there are 2.22 million small fishers, making up over 90 percent of Indonesian fishers.

Sharing a recent finding from FAO, MMAF-supported MCS stocktaking, under ISLME project, he differentiates SSF activities into four phases namely before fishing, during fishing, landing and post landing. “It is more practical and cost efficient to focus on before fishing and landing,” Muralidharan cited the finding. At the before fishing phase, officials can check the fishing vessel registration, business permit/licence, the fishing gear, while at landing phase, officials can inspect the catch, types of fish and the accuracy of the logbook/elogbook report, among others.

Mr. Aris, Director of Fishing Ports, explained that PSMA is a tool to improve port governance and has been adopted into national regulations from Presidential Decree, the Ministerial Regulations and to the subnational level policies for implementation throughout Indonesia.

The Agreement is currently being implemented at three designated fishing ports, Nizam Zachman Ocean Fishing Port in Jakarta, Benoa Fishing Port in Bali and Bitung Ocean Fishing Port in North Sulawesi. “We will continuously improve services at the designated ports and also assess other ports with a plan to expand the implementation of PSMA in the future.”

Nowadays, the international community has good awareness and stress the importance of responsible fishing, legal and environmentally friendly fishing operations. “Indonesia’s commitment to PSMA will improve competitiveness of fisheries products from Indonesia and generate revenue from the fisheries sector,” Mr. Aris explained.