{"id":68952,"date":"2021-11-29T15:20:31","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T04:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=68952"},"modified":"2021-11-30T14:40:33","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T03:40:33","slug":"spike-in-incursions-highlights-joint-australian-and-indonesian-interests-in-combating-illegal-fishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/spike-in-incursions-highlights-joint-australian-and-indonesian-interests-in-combating-illegal-fishing\/","title":{"rendered":"Spike in incursions highlights joint Australian and Indonesian interests in combating illegal fishing"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

A significant rise in Indonesian illegal fishing in Australia\u2019s northern waters highlights a significant maritime security threat, and our border enforcement agencies can\u2019t afford to drop the ball.<\/p>\n

Over the past six months, Australian authorities have\u00a0confiscated<\/a>\u00a0more than 600 kilograms of\u00a0trepang\u00a0(sea cucumber) from Indonesian fishing vessels in our waters. Overfished and valuable, Australian\u00a0trepang\u00a0sells for $15\u201330 a kilogram in Indonesia.<\/p>\n

The trepang trade between various Australia\u2019s First Nations peoples and Indonesia\u2019s\u00a0orang Makassar<\/em>\u00a0from Sulawesi has been well established<\/a> since before Australia\u2019s colonisation. That activity is now\u00a0recognised in native title<\/a>\u00a0jurisprudence.<\/p>\n

But these modern-day illegal fishers use contemporary fishing equipment and pose a threat to coral reefs, marine conservation and maritime border security.<\/p>\n

Responding to the incursions, Australian authorities burned the three least seaworthy of the offending boats last month. That\u2019s consistent with Australia\u2019s (and Indonesia\u2019s) punitive procedures for illegal fishing. Over the past 20 years,\u00a0Australia has destroyed around 1,500 boats engaged in illegal fishing in our waters and prosecuted more than 2,000 foreign nationals involved (mainly Indonesian).<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s approach to illegal fishing in its waters has been highly effective. From the height of the problem in 2006 when 367 foreign fishing vessels were apprehended, incursions in recent years have been in the single digits.\u00a0But the rate of illegal fishing activity has soared in the past six months: 209 legislative forfeitures (which can include fishing gear, catch, salt for trepang processing, and sometimes the vessel itself) have been undertaken since 1 July. Some of these forfeitures include recidivist fishing vessels that have been interdicted multiple times.<\/p>\n

Push factors in Indonesia have increased the fishers\u2019 need for quick cash. The fishers hail from East Nusa Tenggara, a collection of more than 1,000 islands in eastern Indonesia. The remote region is often the first to suffer and the last to recover from a crisis. That\u2019s been demonstrated recently by\u00a0major delays in the Covid-19 vaccine rollout<\/a> there.<\/p>\n

Local poverty has been exacerbated by the pandemic\u2019s economic impacts, which may drive a further\u00a01.3 million Indonesians into poverty<\/a>.\u00a0Many worked in Bali\u2019s tourism sector, but, like thousands of Balinese, they\u2019ve\u00a0moved to their home villages<\/a>\u00a0after widespread pandemic-related layoffs. The\u00a0fishing industry has also contracted by 11%<\/a>. That\u2019s pushed the incentives for illegal fishing.\u00a0In April,\u00a0Cyclone Seroja<\/a>\u00a0levelled 20,000 homes and buildings in Nusa Tenggara, killing hundreds. These conditions pushed local fishers to venture further to regain their losses.<\/p>\n

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority\u2019s five-pronged international compliance and engagement program<\/a>\u00a0seeks to address illegal fishing through surveillance and enforcement operations, interagency and high-level communication, information sharing and stakeholder engagement. It emphasises public information campaigns in relevant overseas ports.<\/p>\n

The program\u2019s strength has been its cohesive and multifaceted approach: punitive action is balanced with education campaigns for domestic and international communities on legal best-practice fishing. Key partner agencies include Parks Australia; Maritime Border Command; the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment; the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; and the Royal Australian Navy.<\/p>\n

The overall strategy has incorporated\u00a0government partnerships<\/a>\u00a0and multilateral forums, notably the Australia- and Indonesia-initiated\u00a0regional plan of action<\/a> to promote responsible fishing and combat illegal fishing\u00a0in Southeast Asia.\u00a0It\u2019s been a coordinated top-down approach and helped put the issue on the\u00a0agenda in a recent meeting<\/a>\u00a0between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Indonesian President Joko Widodo.<\/p>\n

But the pandemic has significantly hindered the coordinated and integrated approach that\u2019s kept illegal Indonesian fishing in our waters at low levels over the past 15 years.<\/p>\n

Vessel seizures have continued throughout the pandemic (12 in 2020\u201321 and 28 so far in 2021\u201322). Due to Australian Covid-related quarantine rules, however, fisheries enforcement authorities have only been able to conduct legislative forfeitures, destroy boats and chase boats out of Australian waters; they haven’t been able to apply normal enforcement procedures through the detention and prosecution of foreign crews onshore.<\/p>\n

Australian authorities\u00a0haven\u2019t been able to\u00a0communicate as easily with their overseas counterparts to coordinate responses and drills.\u00a0In-country information campaigns have slowed down, although Australia is\u00a0still\u00a0working\u00a0with Indonesian authorities to provide\u00a0Indonesian-language information chartlets to fishers in key Indonesian ports and during routine at-sea boardings by Australian authorities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Australia and its archipelagic neighbour<\/a> are well placed to cooperate in responding to the problem of illegal fishing due to their shared security and economic interests.\u00a0These interests are perhaps even more critical for Jakarta than for Canberra. The fishing industry\u00a0contributes 2.65% of Indonesia\u2019s GDP<\/a>, and the nation\u2019s maritime border security has been tested by\u00a0Chinese naval vessels<\/a>\u00a0in the contested Natuna Sea.<\/p>\n

Both nations have strong regional policies on the issue (articulated through the regional plan of action) and cooperate bilaterally through drills like\u00a0Operation Jawline Arafura<\/a>. Australia\u2019s Maritime Border Command works with Indonesia\u2019s\u00a0Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries<\/a>\u00a0to patrol and target illegal fishing<\/a>\u00a0along our shared maritime border. Tough crackdowns on illegal fishing are popular in Indonesia. To combat ongoing illegal fishing incursions by Vietnam and Malaysia, former Indonesian fisheries minister Susi Pudjiastuti led prolific and well-publicised\u00a0boat destruction campaigns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s in Indonesia\u2019s interests to be a regional leader in combatting illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, including by cooperating with Australia.\u00a0Recent confusion in Indonesia about Australian authorities\u2019 boat burnings led Jakarta to\u00a0delay the usual Jawline Arafura exercise<\/a>\u00a0until an explanation was provided. Ironically, Jawline Arafura is exactly the kind of bilateral patrol that\u2019s crucial to responding effectively to the illegal fishing problem.\u00a0Fortunately, the problem was\u00a0resolved<\/a>\u00a0and the exercise went ahead. But misunderstandings like these could stymie future cooperative opportunities with Indonesia on shared ocean interests.<\/p>\n

Australia should continue to advance its diplomatic efforts with Indonesian authorities on common maritime enforcement issues. At the same time, Canberra should stress to Jakarta the need to take flag-state responsibility; Indonesia has to be able to control its own fishing fleet.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more at stake here than environmental damage and millions of dollars in\u00a0economic losses<\/a>.<\/u>\u00a0In coming decades, rising ocean temperatures are set to continue to displace fish populations<\/a> across maritime Southeast Asia. That will push valuable fisheries further south to cooler waters, and fishers will follow.\u00a0Australia will need to add more ballast to relations with the Southeast Asian countries from which further incursions targeting our marine living resources will likely come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A significant rise in Indonesian illegal fishing in Australia\u2019s northern waters highlights a significant maritime security threat, and our border enforcement agencies can\u2019t afford to drop the ball. Over the past six months, Australian authorities …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1243,"featured_media":68955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[416,971,8,25],"class_list":["post-68952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australian-government","tag-illegal-fishing","tag-indonesia","tag-southeast-asia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSpike in incursions highlights joint Australian and Indonesian interests in combating illegal fishing | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/spike-in-incursions-highlights-joint-australian-and-indonesian-interests-in-combating-illegal-fishing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spike in incursions highlights joint Australian and Indonesian interests in combating illegal fishing | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A significant rise in Indonesian illegal fishing in Australia\u2019s northern waters highlights a significant maritime security threat, and our border enforcement agencies can\u2019t afford to drop the ball. 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