Coral reef fisheries are a vital source of food and income for 152 million Indonesians living in coastal areas and a traditional way of life for hundreds of unique Indonesian cultures and ethnic groups. Indonesia's reefs also support the richest marine biodiversity on the planet and a biodiversity hotspot called the 'Coral Triangle' covers most of Eastern Indonesia. "These reefs are globally important as 90% of the world's coral species and 50% of the world's reef fish can be found there. The Coral Triangle is unusual as we can find corals that are thousands of years old there so this area appear to act as a refuge for many species from climate change", says Dr David Smith from the UK's Coral Reef Research Unit. Unfortunately, recent research shows that over 80% of Indonesia's coral reefs, the largest per country in the world (14%; 51,020 km2), are now threatened from overfishing.

Within the Coral Triangle, fishers in the Wakatobi struggle to catch enough fish with traditional hooks, small nets and bamboo fish traps to take to local markets, which has caused the price of fish to double in the last year. With little alternative, fishermen leave for work several days away, often not returning. Those that continue to fish are forced to use modern efficient gear just to make a living or use coral destructive methods such as crowbars, poisons and explosives to supply the lucrative unregulated export trade to Asia. Research by Dr Duncan May concluded that "The current level of fishing is biologically unsustainable. Without a change in fishing practices a collapse of the fisheries is inevitable, which may cause irreversible ecosystem changes and permanent loss of biodiversity".

Fisheries divide into seasonal atoll fishing during the calm seasons, fishing of Kaledupan reefs, pelagic fishing and invertebrate collection for export from atolls and Kaledupan reefs. There is also a live fish trade during the calm season for export and fishing using illegal techniques such as poison and explosives. Descriptions of fishing techniques can be found here.

Coral reefs are an important part of the global ecosystem trapping billions of tones of carbon over very long time scales and aiding productivity in nutrient poor oceans.

Their immense number of living species supported by reefs (biodiversity) offers potential sources of biomedical products. Indonesia, which has over 17,000 islands, has the largest proportion of the worlds coral reefs per country, which are more diverse and larger than the Great Barrier reef. These reefs support the highest marine biodiversity on the planet, containing half the world's reef fish species and 2/3 of the world's coral species.

Not surprisingly, everyone in the world should be concerned as to the condition of Indonesia's coral reefs.

The Wakatobi lies within the Coral triangle, a biodiversity hot spot, in a near pristine marine environment far from mass marine exploitation and industrial pollution. The Kaledupa community relies almost totally on fish and marine invertebrates for protein due to the poor soil conditions and both cultures living on Kaledupa have deep roots in fishing traditions.

As Kaledupan society moves from subsistence living to market based economy with new material aspirations, most incomes on Kaledupa must come from fishing without any alternatives available. Increased population growth and commercialization of traditional fisheries is now threatening food security through overfishing.

This situation is only a reflection of the processes occurring all around Indonesia, with most Indonesians living on the coast and depending on the sea for protein. If we can assist Kaledupan fishers to develop sustainable fisheries management, to protect their food security, culture and income, we can help them also protect their biodiversity and future, which has global consequences for all of us.

As the Wakatobi has outstanding biodiversity to protect and a heavy reliance on marine resources with few alternatives, the Wallacea Trust believes the Kaledupa Fisheries Program can demonstrate management in extreme circumstances which could be applied in other parts of Indonesia.

Fisheries Research 2000 to 2004

Operation Wallacea survey teams identified that the fisheries around Kaledupa were at serious risk, affecting the communities living on and around this island in the Wakatobi national park.The damage was being caused by traditional fishing methods, rather than by commercial operations or practices normally regarded as destructive (e.g. bombs, cyanide, etc).

The problem lies both with increased CPUE (catch per unit effort) as fishing equipment becomes more efficient and larger numbers of fishermen utilising the area.Indonesian law gives protection to communities who have traditionally used the sea to utilise traditional fishing methods in their traditional fishing grounds. Therefore there is no legislation that protects the fisheries of Kaledupa from the current pressures.Some species that used to provide substantial parts of the catch have already collapsed (e.g. lobsters) and without management the fishery was likely to collapse to such a low level that it could not support the families living on Kaledupa. This results in emigration and a decline in living standards for those remaining.

Over 2004/2005 Operation Wallacea LTD and the Operation Wallacea Trust worked together to produce a management plan for the Kaledupa fisheries. There were a number of unanswered questions, especially regarding how the plan would be received by the local community, so the Operation Wallacea Trust funded a pilot project.

It was estimated that fishing effort would need to be reduced by at least 30% to allow the stocks to recover.There are various ways this can be done including setting aside part of the reefs as no fishing areas, banning commercial fisheries, setting invertebrate landing sizes, limiting fisher numbers and enforcing changes to gear to reduce efficiency (e.g. increasing mesh size).

The pilot project focused on boat registration and socialisation and was a resounding success. Once fishers have been registered then licenses can be issued, allowing monitoring of fishing effort. These licenses can then be purchased by the trust resulting in the fishers being directly compensated and receiving an annual income greater than they would earn from fishing and reducing overall fishing effort. This would also have the effect of enhancing catches for those still involved in the fishery

This concept of trading fishing licenses would help move the Kaledupa reefs from an open access fishery, where the best strategy was to grab as many fish as possible before some else did ('The tragedy of the commons'), to a closed fishery with a series of 'shareholders'.

As the local communities had already realised that the fisheries were in decline and that something had to be done, implementation of the registration scheme proceeded smoothly. In 2005 the Operation Wallacea Trust funded trials of the registration scheme in 4 villages on Kaledupa, developed a weekly fishery monitoring programme that could be implemented locally, lobbied for the devolution of control of the fishery from the Wakatobi level to island level and held numerous workshops with fishers in different communities to obtain their feedback on the proposed management scheme.

There was overwhelming support for the registration scheme which was implemented in full in each of the 4 target villages and for the establishment of a Kaledupa Fisheries Forum (similar to that established for the Lambusango forests). In addition COREMAP, a project designed to develop sustainable fisheries for coastal communities in eastern Indonesia, has included $0.5million in its budgets for the Kaledupa Fishery Management project.

In 2006 no funding had resulted from the Trust's grant proposal, so the Operation Wallacea Trust continued to fund the monitoring programme. However, late in 2006, the Darwin Initiative gave the project a £150,000 grant towards the project in collaboration with COREMAP (the World Bank/GEF sustainable fisheries initiative).

In 2005 the six month pilot project by Operation Wallacea Trust with assistance from FORKANI (local Forum for environmental issues) made the following conclusions:

Fisheries scientists believe that the nearshore traditional fisheries around Kaledupa are declining. Social data has identified a perceived reduction of species diversity and the size of fish in catches over previous decades by fishers. Fisheries catch per unit effort data, percentage of mature fish caught, species composition and boom and bust cycles of export fisheries indicates that current fishing is not biologically sustainable. This inability of Kaledupa fish stocks to replenish themselves is mainly attributed to an ever increasing number of fishers using an increasing number of highly efficient 'traditional' fishing gears in conjunction with the ability of certain traditional fishing gears to catch fish below the size of maturation.

It is concluded that current unmanaged traditional fisheries threaten food security, coastal livelihoods, culture and marine biodiversity on the island of Kaledupa. Presently there is limited capacity or funds to manage the fisheries and little has been done to address the core issues of unsustainable fishing gears or increasing numbers of fishers causing over fishing. Factors contributing to stock decline and suggested management approaches were discussed in detail during focus group discussions with fishers. These focus groups worked well as an example of the formation of village level legislation with high legitimacy among the fishing community and demonstrated willingness for traditional fisheries management by communities.

The 2005 Pilot project report can be downloaded here.

The Darwin Initiative and the Kaledupa Fisheries project (klik untuk Bahasa Indonesia)

Click to visit the Darwin Initiatives page on "Building Capacity for sustainable fisheries management in the Wallacea region"

Based on the findings of the 2005 Pilot Project, a 4 year Darwin Initiative project 'Building capacity for sustainable fisheries management in the Wallacea region' was initiated in May 2007 by Operation Wallacea Trust (UK) and Indonesian project partner FORKANI. The Darwin Project works with communities through FORKANI to develop sustainable fisheries management at a village and island level to protect food security, coastal livelihoods and culture but with a final result to protect biodiversity. This will provide a model for other parts of the Wakatobi and other national parks on how to balance biodiversity protection with the aspirations of the communities in areas where there are no local ownership agreements. Village and Island legislation will be developed with communities to licence Kaledupan fishers to ensure no outside fishers use Kaledupa waters and to help identify fishers using bombs and cyanide. Furthermore it will be established that fishing around Kaledupa is a privilege for those who do not abuse the resource, not a right to everyone.

High fishing pressure (numbers of fishers and their fishing gear) will be reduced by offering alternative incomes to fishers in return for their fishing licence. These alternatives will include aquaculture, micro finance schemes, carbon trading, ecotourism and increased prices for current non fishing products. Local communities will be empowered at a village and island level to manage their own fisheries via: information on the status of the fisheries and solutions generated from self collected fishery monitoring data; and a self driven Kaledupa Island Fisheries Forum to co-ordinate management.

Training will be given to establish a Kaledupa Island Fisheries Forum with a capacity to create and enforce village level legislation in co-management with local government. Additional support for development of legislation, surveillance and community policing will be supplied through the ongoing COREMAP project.

The key stages of the project are:

1. Training and Monitoring: detailed year-round monitoring of catches to assess the success of the project. The fisheries monitoring handbook can be downloaded in English and Indonesian.
2. Education and Awareness: informing people of the issues and how they can solve them.
3. Registration and Licensing: all the fishermen so that effective licensing and management programmes can be started.
4. Legislation: working with the local government to ensure that unlicensed fishermen cannot fish in the area.
5. Creation of other income streams: purchase of licenses from fishermen in exchange for other income streams to reduce pressure on the area.

Progress to date

Profiles of the project staff involved can be found here.