JAKARTA — In continuing to provide controversial subsidies for small-scale fishers, Indonesia must also integrate marine protection measures into social protection schemes, a new study has said. Government subsidies for fisheries have enabled industries to fish in economically unfeasible ocean areas, but this support has faced wide criticism for harming the long-term viability of marine resources. Indonesia claims to be exempt from a 2022 World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement requiring its 164 member states to halt subsidies that support fishing overfished stocks and to reduce those that contribute to illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing at sea. However, the Indonesian government must implement an effective strategy and prescription to protect marine resources through subsidies, aiming to support small-scale fisheries and ensure the long-term sustainability of marine resources, as mandated by the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, according to a researcher duo from the country’s Airlangga University and Padjadjaran University — Intan Innayatun Soeparna and Ankiq Taofiqurohman — in their study published in May on the journal Marine Policy. “[U]pholding and preserving the sustainability of marine fishery resources are incumbent upon the government through the implementation of marine protection policies,” the paper read. Indonesia is a top marine capture producer in the world. Image courtesy of Indonesia’s Marine and Fisheries Ministry. The researchers analyzed Indonesian policies that stipulate efforts to protect marine fishery resources and support small-scale fishers, who are among the country’s most extremely impoverished groups. They found that some of the policies have indeed targeted the dual objective of…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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