A review of Indonesia's Indian Ocean tuna fisheries

Summary

The Indonesia-Australia Meeting on Indian Ocean fisheries, held in Bali in 2000, identified priority areas for future research co-operation and collaboration between Australia and Indonesia in the field of tuna and shark fisheries. A strategic plan was formulated with a vision that by 2008 Indonesia will have statistically robust data collection, synthesis and reporting systems, and the fishery stock assessment capacity to enable Indonesian scientists to provide robust data summaries and stock assessments of Indonesia’s Indian Ocean fisheries to management organisations such as the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) and the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT).

As the first stage in this plan an ACIAR collaborative project was established that had two principle components: a review of the status of Indonesia’s industrial and artisanal fisheries for tuna and tuna-like species (including billfish) operating in the Indian Ocean; and an expansion the monitoring program for tuna and billfish catches by Indonesia’s industrial longline fleets to cover the three key landing ports
of Benoa, Muara Baru, and Cilacap. This report summariese the findings from the project.