Small-scale fishers’ perception of risks in Indonesia’s cross-border region of North Maluku

A new paper titled “Small-scale fishers’ perception of risks in Indonesia’s cross-border region of North Maluku” by Segara Nusa Nawasena’s team consisting of Dr Senia Febrica, Dr Herson Keradjaan, and Michael Gustaf has been published in Marine Policy journal. This research is conducted by Segara Nusa Nawasena and Universitas Halmahera in collaboration with Dr Laely Nurhidayah from Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional (BRIN).

North Maluku is one of the richest fishing grounds in Indonesia. It is located at Indonesia’s northern border region, facing the Pacific Ocean and Palau. This research was conducted between 2020 to 2024. As part of this research we carried out survey involving 300 small-scale fishers living in Tobelo and Morotai in combination with a series of interviews and focus group discussions. Key points and recommendations from our paper are outlined below:

• In defining what constitutes as a threat to them the fishers reveal that threats dimension that they face daily involves a combination of safety of life at sea (or in this instance the lack of it), climate change and maritime crimes.

• In terms of safety of life at sea or work accidents, small-scale fishers identified a range of threats that are common to them such as vessel sunk or capsized during extreme weather conditions and fire caused by the spill of oil following vessels encountered with high wave.

• Climate change has been identified as posing serious risks to fishers. Fishers are aware of the impacts of climate change on weather pattern, height of wave, and declining fish stocks, and have actively made various adaptation measures to adapt to the changing climate such as:

  • getting insurance,

  • observing weather report,

  • adjusting fishing time in line with the weather report,

  • building supplementary livelihoods

In terms of ocean crimes, destructive and illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing has been pointed as a key concern. Fishers make connections between these acts of crimes in their surrounding waterways with the decline of fish stocks and subsequently, their income.

Some of the recommendations from our paper derived from this study point to the urgent need in:

(1) providing fishers with access to access to information and meaningful participation in consultation and decision-making processes related to improving fishing safety, climate change and ocean crimes.

(2) building capacity of fishers to participate in consultation and decision-making processes.

(3) ensuring better implementation of government policies such as distribution of subsidised fuel and socialisation of the government Kusuka’s marine insurance to reach more fishers.

(4) improving coordination among Indonesian maritime authorities to provide timely assistance to fishers when they are in distress at sea.