A Survey of the Artisanal Fisheries for the Bajo Sampela Fishing Community, Wakatobi Marine Park

Project Goal: To undertake a long term monitoring program for the artisanal fishery associated with the east coast of Kaledupa and Hoga Island as a basis for implementing a stakeholder management plan with local fishing communities.

2001 Objective: To assess target species, catch rates and preferred fishing locations for each of the major fishing techniques associated with the artisanal fishery of the Bajo Sampela community.

As for most marine parks located throughout Indonesia, the Wakatobi Marine Park of Southeast Sulawesi is one that supports a large number of resident fishing communities. These communities inevitably provide a dilemma for conservation efforts seeking to ensure the protection of marine organisms and their habitats in particularly where they occur in association with biodiverse coral reef habitats. This dilemma is in large part created by a dependency by local fishing communities upon resources conservationists themselves seek to protect. This dependency undoubtedly has a significant impact upon biodiversity, a concept it would appear that has little meaning in the context of simple subsistence fishers livelihoods. Furthermore attempts to exclude fishing communities from conservation areas remains improbable given their long history and high degree of dependence upon those marine resources found within these areas. Conservationists instead must ultimately seek ways to work with and empower local communities in order that they are able to actively participate in the management of marine resources found within marine parks in a way that is also found to be compatible with the goals of conservation.

Efforts toward community based conservation now widely acknowledged as an important goal within the conservation movement have proved far more difficult to implement than those charged with their implementation had initially predicted. One reason suggested for difficulties associated with attempts aimed at involving local peoples in the management of marine resources upon which they depend is that such initiatives often lack a detailed understanding of how local peoples are utilizing and ultimately depend upon those resources conservationists seek to protect. Knowledge on how resources are being exploited by fishing communities is seen as critical and depends upon such information as what techniques are being employed and what their impacts upon marine resources are so that realistic approaches to resource management can be identified and incorporated into local peoples livelihoods.

Despite a need for such information however few projects to date seeking to work with coastal communities have generated the necessary base line information on the way fishers are utilizing their local marine resources so that meaningful approaches to management can be adopted with local peoples.

In 2001 Operation Wallacea commenced a long term survey and monitoring program of the artisanal fisheries associated with a single community operating in a small defined area of the Wakatobi Marine Park. The collection of information on fishing practices adopted by members from the Bajo Sampela community is ultimately seen as critical efforts aimed at devising new strategies relating to resource use practices.

Members of the Bajo fishing community of Sampela are known to employ a range of different fishing techniques most of which are widely referred to as ‘traditional’. Fishers adopt certain techniques based upon what techniques have been passed onto them and they have grown up with, what they can afford where specific equipment is required, and increasingly on what they believe will provide them with a significant source of income. Whilst most fishers know more than one fishing technique they also have preferred fishing techniques which they mostly commonly participate in and upon which they depend most heavily. Finally fishing activity is affected by a number of different factors that include tides, moon phase and season.

The major fishing techniques employed by the Sampela community were categorised as follows: (1) line fishing (undertaken on the sea grass flats, reef wall, for grouper (seasonally), at night with a lantern and offshore usually in association with rompongs); (2) net fishing (utilizing a variety of different mesh sizes and techniques but which is concentrated on the sea grass flats and reef crest); (3) reef gleaning (undertaken at low tide either during the day or at night and with a lantern either on foot or from a canoe (nyulu) using a spear or scoop net);and (4) free diving (mostly at night using a torch or a spear gun during the day). Given this diversity of techniques and the limited resources available to this project as well as the fact not all techniques were found to be in active use during the period of the survey, only those techniques considered to be most commonly used and which could be surveyed simultaneously were incorporated into the first year of this artisanal fishing survey.

Surveys were conducted twice a week each week for the months of July, August and September. Surveys comprised two components; a field survey and catch analysis. The field survey involved a survey vessel travelling across the extent of the survey area along a replicable transect path recording information for each fisher observed. Specific information recorded included location (by GPS position), name of fisher, technique employed including details of fishing equipment being utilized, time spent fishing and the habitat they were fishing in. Following the collection of this information each fisher was given a small incentive to bring his or her catch back to a central location in the village at the completion of the fishing foray for a detailed catch analysis. Catch analysis involved weighing the total catch, counting the number of individuals for each species recorded and measuring the lengths for up to 20 individuals for each species.

All surveys were conducted in the morning when there is a peak period of fishing activity. The field survey component commenced at 06:30 and involved at least two volunteer students; one to record data and take GPS locations and a second to observe for fishers operating in the study area. A Bajo translator also participated to facilitate the survey and enable communication with fishers met on the transect. The field survey component took on average between three to four hours. The catch analysis commenced at the time fishers recorded on the field survey commenced returning to the village. A separate team of volunteers remained on standby within the village to recorded individual catches as they arrived. A total of four volunteers were required for the catch analysis; one weighing and sorting the catch by species; one for fish measuring; one data recorder and one to assist with species identification with available field guides. The availability of volunteers each week for a total of 12 weeks greatly facilitated the surveys conducted and enabled a large amount of information to be collected in an intensive survey period with a high degree of accuracy. In addition local children and members of the fishing community regularly participated in the surveys facilitating relations between the community and the project whose results will in the near future be presented formally to the community.

Surveys were undertaken on 24 separate occasions and yielded substantial information on the activities of some 43 different fishers active within the Sampela community and on a variety of different fishing techniques being employed. This is seen to represent a significant proportion of all fishers active within the community (approx. 30%) and as such a useful starting point from which to assess the fishery. On average each fisher was surveyed on 1.7 occaisions with two fishers being examined on six different occaisions (most commonly) and some 16 fishers being surveyed on only a single occaision (least common). Whilst a detailed analysis of the data has yet to be undertaken (surveys are still being undertaken at the time of writing this report) some basic information derived from the surveys is described below.

Specifically 217 different fishing forays were surveyed comprising 89 sea grass flat line fishers, 52 line fishers on the reef wall, 48 net fishers and 28 spear gun fishers. These forays collectively caught over 200 different species which were identified and recorded according to both their Bajo and scientific names. Fishing effort was concentrated in the area immediately surrounding the village (Sampela Zone), the area to the north of the village (Langgira Zone) and to a lesser extent the area surrounding Hoga Island (Hoga Zone). Few fishing forays were recorded from the other two zones located in the south of the study area and known as Lintea and Burangga Zones. This trend is most likely seen as reflecting the fact the survey was conducted during the peak east monsoon period when fishers access to the southern section of the study area is likely to have been restricted. Furthermore, fishing activity, given most fishers depend upon non-motorised canoes for transport, is in any case likely to be concentrated in close proximity to the village.

A detailed analysis of all data collected in relation to these artisanal fisher surveys will be undertaken later in 2001 when all surveys have been completed up to the end of September. It is hoped such analysis will be able to demonstrate geographical distribution by technique within the study area, fishing effort and success by each fishing technique, as well as size and species distribution for each fishing technique.

This first year survey is part of a much longer survey program to be undertaken within this study area and represents what we believe to be the first time a detailed fisheries survey has been undertaken for any Bajo community anywhere in Southeast Asia. As such this study is seen as providing an important insight into an artisanal fishery whose implications are likely to be relevant beyond the immediate study area. Significant preliminary observations include (1) the range of techniques employed has been found to be extremely diverse and as such this survey is still incomplete and future efforts need to be made to ensure all fishing techniques employed by the community are also examined also (2) the diversity of species exploited by the Bajo was found to be extremely high (all major family groups were represented demonstrating a high degree of dependency by the Bajo on reef diversity. (3) the Bajo possess a high level of natural history knowledge associated with those species examined, a level of knowledge that most outsiders rarely acknowledge or are aware of (4) whilst fishing effort in certain areas remains intensive this activity is focussed on sea grass flats surrounding the village. This latter observation suggests that whilst fish stocks are likely to be depressed in these areas that much of the study area is not intensively exploited and as such unlikely to be overfished. Reasons for this are that techniques employed are not intensive (line fishing remains the most common technique employed) and that accessibility to sites away from the village is limited. As a result adult fish stocks located off the reef wall which are inaccesible to gill nets and many line fishers are likely to remain intact for many species and that this should ensure fishing on the reef flats which act as juvenile nursery grounds for many species remain a viable fishing activity..

Despite this positive outlook for the local fishery, fishers perceptions in interviews already undertaken in the village suggest that there has been a widespread decline in fish stocks generally in the study area. This is likely to be the result of increased use of gill nets, increased overall fishing effort by a growing population and the increasing use of cyanide. As such there remains an important need for management of intensively used fisheries within the marine park such as the area addressed by this study and ongoing surveys in the future should generate a more detailed understanding of how fish resources are being exploited so informed management decisions can be made.

There still remain numerous techniques that this initial survey failed to include and efforts need to be made in the future to include them as part of a much more intensive survey effort based upon the Sampela community. In particular net fishing was under surveyed, whilst night fishing techniques except limited work on nyulu, were not looked examined. One limitation is that the period that volunteers are actively involved in survey activities restricts the survey period to just one season or time of year and that an effort also needs to be made to ensure surveys are conducted during other times of the year such as during the west monsoon and the calm season. Finally this study has not managed to examine the use of highly secretive and sensitive activities known as destructive fishing practices that are also known to still be in use by the community. Whilst only a small number of fishers are still involved in bomb fishing (although this number is likely to be much larger when other villages in the area are taken into account), the use of cyanide in the past two years has become increasingly widespread and should be of major concern to conservation efforts in the area.

This study whilst examining by far the largest fishing community on the east coat of Kaledupa where this survey was concentrated has however not examined the activities of fishers from other villages. Small numbers of Kaledupans from at least 5 different villages are known to also participate in fishing at least seasonally and significantly they are are known to use techniques that differ from those employed by the Bajo. A second but much smaller Bajo village also exists in the study area and attempts should also be made to survey techniques in use by fishers from this community. In all much work remains to be done to understand how the local fisheries are being exploited by communities in the area, but this first year of information collected should be seen as an invaluable starting point.

Report

A paper entitled A description of the artisanal fishery on the reefs around Hoga Island in the Wakatobi Marine National Park will be produced by Dr Tim Coles (Operation Wallacea) and Chris Majors (Murdoch University) by December 2002 after completion of the second year of this survey.