An organisation aimed at improving sustainability and promoting legal, reported and regulated fishing in Indonesia has launched at the Seafood Expo Global trade show in Belgium.
The One-by-One Indonesia Tuna Alliance brings together three organisations – the International Pole & Line Foundation (IPNLF), Yayasan Masyarakat dan Perikanan Indonesia (MDPI), and the Indonesian Pole and Line & Handline Fisheries Association (AP2HI).
Jeremy Crawford, Southeast Asia Director of IPNLF, said that Indonesian one-by-one tuna fisheries and supply chains are complex, varied and vast. "By leveraging the combined strengths of all the alliance members, we can continue to deliver the best improvements on the ground to support the fishers and fishing communities, and throughout the supply chains," he said.
Indonesia is the world's largest producer of tuna but illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing costs the country an estimated US$3bn a year. The One-by-One Indonesia Tuna Alliance, with support from the United States Agency for International Development Oceans and Fisheries Partnership intends to develop and promote pole-and-line, troll and handline (one-by-one) tuna fisheries and communities.
Alliance members have been working together over the past five years to encourage more sustainable practices and by coming together can focus efforts on the continued integration of technologies to help strengthen the electronic catch documentation and traceability of Indonesia’s tuna and the preparation of fisheries for Marine Stewardship Council certification.
In the long-term, the alliance hopes to disseminate best practices in sustainable fisheries management throughout the region.
