Marine observers in Indonesia have warned of a potential rise in illegal and unreported fishing in the wake of a new policy for how the government collects revenue from big fishing boats.
This non-tax revenue includes fees for certification, resource exploitation, port services, quality inspections, and training, among others. The Indonesian fisheries ministry in 2021 issued a decree that allows operators of fishing vessels larger than 60 gross tonnage to pay all non-tax revenue in a lump sum after they land their catch at port. Previously, they were required to pay before going out to sea, when applying for business and fishing licenses.
The ministry says the main reason for the change is to boost state income from the marine capture fisheries sector, while also tackling illegal practices of marking down boat sizes and overfishing.
“The endgame is actually for Indonesia to have fisheries management system that’s well regulated, reported, and obeyed by all stakeholders,” Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, the fisheries minister, said at a press conference in Jakarta on Feb. 28.
Sakti said that while the new fee scheme wasn’t necessarily designed to crack down on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, it would target increasing state income that could then be allocated to improve fisheries infrastructure and help boost small-scale and traditional fishers’ welfare.
The government expects to raise 1.63 billion rupiah ($107,000) in non-tax state revenue from the capture fisheries sector in 2023, and up to 1.7 billion rupiah ($111,000) in 2024, according to the fisheries ministry. The ministry’s data showed that the average total catch per year was 7 million metric tons annually over the past five years, valued at up to 140 trillion rupiah ($9.2 billion).
However, some marine observers say the policy will make an insignificant contribution to increasing state revenues, while likely widening the loophole for fishers to misrepresent the actual volume of their catches.
Its main feature is that it relies heavily on self-declarations by fishing boat operators when reporting the volume of their catch at port. This opens the potential for underreporting catch volume in order to reduce the non-tax revenue to be paid. The policy also prioritizes administrative sanctions, such as fines and permit revocation, for violations, while reserving criminal punishment as a last resort.