Sustainable fishing can be profitable

According to The Jakarta Post, "Maluku handline fishermen prove sustainable fishing can be profitable".

Every day, dozens of fishermen on Buru Island, Maluku, brave the open seas in small boats and equipped with only handlines and hooks in search of the region’s local specialty, yellowfin tuna.

Buru Island native Umar Papalia, 41, has set out in his motorized boat daily for the last 13 years at the break of dawn to catch bait before hunting the tuna.

“We usually look for dolphins,” he explained. “Yellowfin tuna are friends with dolphins so if we find a dolphin on the surface, the yellowfin tuna will usually be in front of it.”

Umar returns to land by sunset at the earliest and if he is lucky to have caught the much-sought after tuna, he will weigh, store and send it to a factory for filleting and processing.

But Umar, with his sunbaked skin and arms scarred by fishing lines from struggling with big fish, is no ordinary fisherman. At least nine fishing communities made up of 123 fishermen like Umar have been certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and its eco-label trademark, making them the first small-scale fisheries in Indonesia to receive the global recognition and the second-ever recipients in the country.

Read the original full article here

Ricardo Baeza Errazuriz | Fisheries Specialist