INDONESIA'S EXPERIENCE OF FISH AGGREGATING DEVICES (FADS) BY HARDJONO' 1. INTRODUCTION As an archipelagic state, Indonesia is endowed with a vast area of marine waters amounting to 5.8 million km, comprising 2.8 million km of internal waters, 0.3 million km of territorial waters, and 2.7 million km of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Large areas of marine waters in Indonesia offer good resource potential typical of the tropics and marine fisheries play an important role in the Indonesia fisheries. Among the multispecies tropical resources available in Indonesia waters those of great value are skipjack, tuna, promfret, Spanish mackerel, snapper, grouper and some carangids. Among shellfish, shrimp (Penaeus sp.) and spiny lobster are the most expensive. Recent estimates of the fisheries potentials of the country indicate a.potentia1 reaching 6.6 million mt, comprising of 4.5 million mt ib archipelagic and territorial waters and 2.1 million mt in the EEZ. The development of marine fish production in Indonesia during the the years 1980-1987 shows an average increase of 6.22% a year. At present marine fisheries contribute 76% of the total fisheries production which by 1987 reached 2.017 million mt. As a result of diverse characteristics of the Indonesian archipelago, the country's marine fisheries are complex and varied, and are dominated by traditional fishing activities operating a large number of very small vessels. Various kinds of fishing gear are employed which are dominated by gill nets comprising nearly one third of all fishing units operated. When the amount of fish landed by different types of fishing gear is considered, payang: and purse seine contribute the largest part of fish landed amounting to about 26% of total annual fish landings. Payang and purse seine are operated in the area where rumponb are placed. Hundreds of rumpons are employed especially for catching small pelagic fish using payang and purse seine, and more than 170 payaosC are operated in West Sumatera, South Sulawesi, North Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, North Maluku, East Java, and Irian Jaya for catching skipjack and tuna. It is obvious that rumpon as fish aggregating devices have an important role in the Indonesian fisheries. ' Directorate General of Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture. Indonesia. " Payang is a seine bagnet which basically comprises 3 parts namely: wing, body and bag used for catching small pelagic fish. (Subani, W. and H.R. Barus, 1989) " Rumpon is the general name of fish aggregating device operated in relative shallow water to catch small pelagic fish such as scad. sardine, mackerel, etc. Payao is a fish aggregating device operated in the deep sea to catch large pelagic fish such as tuna, skipjack, etc. 2. INDONESIAN PRE-FAD FISHERIES There is no record as to when rumpon were first used in Indonesian fisheries. However, operation of payang was described by van Kompen (1909, reported by Hudenberg 1932 and sited by Bailey, C. et.al, 1987) who reported round scads to be the most important species exploited by this gear. Instituut voor de Zeevishcherij te Batavia Mededeeling No.5 Jaarverslag 1939 reported that Payang, Djabour (a kind of cast net) and Sero (guiding barriers) were layang/scads, kembunghdian mackerel, selarltrevalie, tongkolleastern little tuna, bawallpromfret, terilanchovies, rebontsmall shrimp, etc. Layanglround scads represented the dominant fish caught, amounting to 14.7% of the total fish landed in the north coast of Java. Whether rumpon was already used at that time as usually happens in fishing operation of payang at present still needs to be studied. At that time, fish was landed and auctioned in several landing places such as Eretan, Indramayu, Sawodjadjar, Tegal, Tanjungsari, Wonokerto, Batang, Tawang, Bandengan. Semarang, etc. all of which are located along the north coast of Java. Rusman, A.M. (1954) reported that "Pukat Selar" which was operated using unjan or rumpon had been employed in Serdang, North Sumatera in 1921, mainly for catching selarltrevalies. Unjan was placed at a depth of 15-30 m around 10-30 miles away from the coast line. Gears used for catching tuna and skipjack during the pre-FAD period were mainly long-line and pole and line, the same gears as were used during the FAD (payao) period. There are distinct differences in the national annual tunalskipjack production of these two periods. During the years 1981-1984 (pre-payao period), the average national production of tuna was 27,526 mtlyear and skipjack was 69,114 mt, while during payao period (1985-1987) it increased to 37,913 mtlyear for tuna and 91,732 mtlyear for skipjack, or an increase of 37.74% and 32.74% for tuna and skipjack respectively. Study of the effectiveness of the use of payaos for tunalskipjack fishing in Maluku waters by Tuasamu (1985) revealed that there ware significant increases in skipjack production after the introduction of payaos for skipjack fishing. 3. THE USE OF RUMPONIPAYAOS IN INDONESIA 1. The Objectives of Using RumponIPayaos The main objective of employing rumpon andlor payaos is to concentrate fish in the rumpon in order to make fishing operations more efficient either in terms of time and cost. Much effort has been devoted to increasing fish production. ~odernizitionand motorization of fishing vessels and their facilities and improvement of fishing technology are carried out for this purpose. As a consequence, investment, operational cost, and maintenance cost become higher and higher, and at a certain stage the cost of fishing exceeds the revenue from the fish caught. Traditional fishermen such as those who operated payang and other traditional gears for catching small pelagic fish, have to fish during off season for their livelihood, and try to catch as much fish as possible during the season. As traditional fishermen their capital and capability to improve fishing facilities and technology are limited. Long experience of fishing activities lead them to use rumpon or blabar (fish Idre) to increase the number of fish caught. The advantages of using rumpon in pelagic fishing have been realised by fishermen. In the Java sea where fishing of pelagic fish is conducted intensively, there is a "special business" dealing with the placing and utilization of rumpon. A number of fishermen construct and set rumpon in certain areas of the pelagic fishing grounds which can be fished by all fishermen. However, there is an un-written regulation obligating the user to give a certain amount of the fish caught in a rumpon to the owner of the rumpon. This situation reflects the usefulness of rumpon for fishermen in catching pelagic fish in the area. In the eastern part of Indonesian waters where skipjack and tuna fishing are carried out, the use of payaos is now developing. Although payaos have been already employed by Indonesian fishermen for a long time, their development was very slow. Research on the use of payaos as FADS for tuna and skipjack fishing was carried out by BPPL (Balai Penelitian Perikanan LautIMarine Fisheries Research Institute) in Prigi,, East Java (1983), and Mamuju, South Sulawesi (1985), while fishing trials were done by BPPI (Balai Pengembanga Penangkapan IkanIFishing Technology Development Centre) among others in Teluk Tomini. Following the success of fishing trials using payaos, and realizing the success of the Philippines and other countries in using payaos, Indonesia led by PT. Usaha ~ina*is now developing PIRINES (Perusahaan Inti RakyatINucleus Estate and Smallholder) system for tuna and skipjack fishing in Eastern Indonesian waters where PT. Usaha Mina acted as Nucleus and small-scale fishermen as small holders. This type of joint management of fishing is called "Armada Semut" which literally means "Ant Fishing Fleet" in English. The use of FADS is not limited to the direct improvement of fish catch, but also aimed at improving environment quality of certain areas of the sea, which in turn will increase the productivity of the area. Jakarta bay and its surrounding waters including Kepulauan Seribu are well known as the area In which coral fish are fished. Intensive exploitation combined with the use of dangerous substances such as dynamite and pollution from upland areas, seriously threathens the environment and fish stock in the area. Therefore, an effort to restore its quality is now being made since November 1985 by utilizing discarded tricycles and buses for creating artificial reefs in the area. So far 54,600 tricycles and 85 buses have been dumped into the water around Kep. Seribu (Table 1; Fig.l). According to the plan, the programme of dumping tricycles and buses will be terminated in 1992 when Jakarta is expected to be free of tricycles. In 1989 another 3,400 tricycles and 400 buses will be dumped for this purpose. 2. Site Selection for Placing RumpodPayaos The main fishing grounds for small pelagic fish are the Java Sea, Malacca Strait, Makasar Strait and Bali Strait,especially in the area where there is a meeting of water currents bringing nutrients or where upwelling exists. The fishermen, especially experienced fishing master fishermen already know the areas chosen to place rumpon. Those areas are traditionally exploited by fishermen, and considered nearly over exploited. Usually fishermen transfer the rumpon to other places whenever they periodically realise that the fish catch in the area in which rumpon are placed is insufficient. They will then choose a new site for their rumpon simply according to their experience of previous fishing. Continuous trials are done until they find a good fishing ground. In the joint fishing following NES system applied by PT. Usaha Mina, all payaos required are provided by PT. Usaha Mina, including their deployment in the fishing grounds. Payaos are placed in the expected migration route of skipjack and tuna, among others, by considering the environmenal condition of the sites, their nearness to the fishing communities and bait fish grounds.