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MMAF : Vessel Monitoring System to fight illegal fishing

Jakarta, Ekuatorial – To eradicate illegal fishing in Indonesian waters, Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries will implement monitoring system for vessels, or dubbed as VMS, said a senior official, on Friday (31/100, in Jakarta.

“With VMS [Vessel Monitoring System], we will be able to track down where ships go [to fish]. Each ships have their own territories, so we will know if they went further from their own territories,” said Syarief Widjaja, Secretary General of Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF).

Widjaja added that all ships obtained permits from the ministry must install VMS as part of monitoring system.

Susi Pudjiastuti, Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, said the ministry will update their monitoring system. VMS, she said, was easy to switch off by crews which made monitoring difficult to do. “We will make VMS can not be switch off [by them] so that we can monitor those ships continuously,” she said.

In addition, she said that these data will be easy to access on line for the sake of monitoring process and transparency.

Up to date, 115 ships have been arrested for illegal fishing. In addition, the ministry has revoked permits of 219 ships due to illegal fishing, — 119 ships from western part of Indonesia and 100 ships from eastern part of Indonesia –.

Widjaja said there were three types of violation, — illegal, unrecorded, and unregulated –, mostly popular with IUU. “Illegal means that they don’t have any permits but fishing in our territories. Unrecorded means those ships have legal permits but they are not traceable because they switch off VMS. This is a violation because they can easily enter areas not their territories,” he said. “The last one is unregulated, for instance trans-shipment in the middle of the sea. For this violation, we will take legal action.”

Based on data in 2013, Ministry had inspected 3,871 ships suspected of illegal fishing of which 68 ships were undergoing legal process by the fisheries’ civil servant investigators. From 68 ships, 44 were foreign ships, and the rest were Indonesians.

Pudjiastuti said that the ministry has worked with Indonesian navy and other institutions to reduce illegal fishing in Indonesia. “For local and foreign vessels breaking these rules, we will go after them,” she said firmly. Januar Hakam.

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