Today our entire team travelled to the Fisheries and Food Agency (Dinas Perikanan dan Pangan, DPP) in Banyuwangi to introduce our project entitled “Reducing mobula bycatch within small-scale fisheries”. Our objective was to explore how our project can align with and support the local government’s objectives.
The district of Banyuwangi has one of the largest fishery sectors in Indonesia, and local communities depend on their marine resources as a source of food and livelihoods. For our project to achieve its objectives, we will need to collaborate with many stakeholders, including the local fishery authority.
During the meeting, we explained that, during this phase of our project, our objective is to evaluate the technical, economic and social feasibility of deploying bycatch reduction technologies. We also described the activities we will undertake, including establishing a logbook and port sampling programme, and conducting training and outreach to fishing communities, students and local government about sustainable seafood markets and technologies for bycatch mitigation. We hope that our work can contribute to enhancing the sustainability and economic efficiency of these small-scale fisheries.
We also discussed DPP Banyuwangi’s program and how our project can support their objectives. As well focussing on enhancing the competitiveness of local fisheries, the local government also plans to develop other marine resource sectors, including ecotourism. The staff from DPP Banyuwangi were keen to learn more about MantaWatch Sustainable Tourism projects and how they can protect mobulid ray populations in the coastal waters of Banyuwangi.
Vidlia Rosady explains the project objectives to government partners
Hary Purnomo, Head of DPP Banyuwangi said, “Through this project, we hope that Muncar-Banyuwangi can provide an example to other fisheries districts by starting to reduce bycatch, and the competitiveness of our fisheries can be improved thus helping small-scale fishermen”.
After the meeting, DPP Banyuwangi provided us with a letter of support for our project and offered us access to historical fishery statistics for the district.
