Helping the Banda Traditional Tuna Fishers to comply with the Fishing regulations

In the last 5 years, the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) and LINI have been helping to improve a small-scale fishery of the Yellowfin Tuna in the Banda Archipelago. Since 2017, we have tried to assist the fishers to register their small boats to get their registration number cards, called Bukti Pendaftaran Kapal Perikanan(BPKP). This process has been slow, because there is a lot of documentation that the boat owners need to have. After a long process, to date there are 96 out of 184 boats from Banda Islands that already have BPKP. After receiving BPKP, the boat owners are required to paint the name of the boats on the hull. Since the beginning of August 2019, the fishers have painted their boats’ names on the fishing boats according to the name registered on their BPKP.

This year, the Banda fishery may take part in the Full Assessment of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). The MSC is a certification for seafood products that certify wild-caught fishery to meet sustainability, credibility and traceability criteria. One of the MSC principles is Effective Management which reads – “meet all local, national and international laws and must have a management system in place to respond to changing circumstances and maintain sustainability”. This is what the handline tuna Fishery Improvement Projects trying to implement in the field.

Helping tuna fishers to name their boats (photos: Andre)

By Eveline Kurniati and Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley