- The Indonesian government will resume a controversial policy of exporting lobster larvae, initially just to Vietnam, in exchange for investment in its own lobster-farming industry.
- The ban has met with controversy since it was introduced in 2016; a subsequent attempt to lift it failed after the fisheries minister at the time was arrested for taking bribes to issue export permits.
- The current minister says the lifting this time around is based on pragmatic considerations, with law enforcement efforts failing to stop the smuggling of lobster larvae.
- Critics say the move will benefit Vietnam more than it will Indonesia, given that the former’s far more advanced lobster-farming industry generates far more value from the sale of mature lobsters than Indonesia ever could from the sale of larvae.
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is resuming a controversial policy of exporting lobster larvae — the latest chapter in an eight-year saga that began over concerns for wild lobster stocks and led to a fisheries minister being jailed for corruption.
The country’s current fisheries minister, Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, said recently that the decision to reinstate the export policy was to capitalize on the global multimillion-dollar lobster trade. The government initially banned exports of lobster larvae in 2016 to prevent the overharvesting of wild stocks from the country’s rich waters.
For now, exports are permitted only to Vietnam, whose lobster-farming industry produces around 1,600 metric tons a year of premium-grade lobster grown from mostly imported larvae. Sakti previously suggested that much of the wild-caught lobster larvae supplied to Vietnam was most likely smuggled out of Indonesian waters.
“We can’t fight against [lobster smuggling],” Sakti said at a press conference in Jakarta on April 19. “We tried to do that by imposing regulations, but we’re still unable to tackle them.”
Lobsters are among Indonesia’s top fisheries commodities, but the illegal export of larvae cost the country 900 billion rupiah ($62 million at the time) in lost revenue in 2019 alone, according to the PPATK, the government’s anti-money-laundering watchdog. A key destination is nearby Singapore, from where the larvae are often reexported to third countries like Vietnam and China, where they’re raised to maturity in fish farms and tanks and sold at much higher prices.
Sakti said legalizing lobster larvae exports would both undercut the smugglers and generate revenue for Indonesia. He added that the partnership with Vietnam included the latter investing in developing Indonesia’s aquaculture sector through sharing of technology and knowledge.
According to Sakti, Indonesian waters are the only breeding grounds for lobsters in the region that can supply wild-caught larvae. However, the country is falling behind in its lobster farming due to adverse government policies and lack of farmer knowledge and skills compared to other countries in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam. A major obstacle to economically viable lobster aquaculture is the high mortality rate during the nursery stage, at more than 50%, which has been widely reported in Vietnam and Indonesia.
Indonesia’s lobster-farming industry “has never been able to grow big because the supporting ecosystem isn’t well-established, for example when it comes to [lobster] feed,” Sakti said at the press conference.
The minister previously also said Indonesia would stop seizing Vietnamese fishing boats encroaching into Indonesian waters, instead just turning them back, in exchange for the investment.
Some fisheries observers have expressed skepticism and concerns about the resumption of exports, saying Indonesia will get only a fraction of the value of the lobster trade, put its wild lobster stocks under further pressure, and fail to develop a competitive lobster-farming industry.
“This regulation potentially repeats the dark history of lobster management by the fisheries ministry, especially amid the lack of valid data, scientific research, and transparency over the interests involved in it,” said Susan Herawati, secretary-general of the local NGO People’s Coalition for Justice in Fisheries (KIARA).
KIARA noted that the ministry’s export quota amounts to 90% of the country’s estimated potential lobster larvae of 465.8 million in the wild. That quota was recommended by the National Commission for Fisheries Resources Research, which also offered up options of 50% and 70% of the stock estimate.
“This ministerial decree will exacerbate the threats to the sustainability of lobster stock and resources in Indonesia,” Susan said, noting that the quota could be misused to overharvest the most in-demand lobster species.
Experts say that Indonesia’s waters hold potential for a thriving lobster fishery, particularly at the confluence of currents from the Indian and Pacific ocean, which distribute the larvae along the southern coasts of western Sumatra, Java, and the Nusa Tenggara Islands.
On the Nusa Tenggara island of Lombok, sand lobsters make up 90% of the annual catch, according to a study. These lobsters are grown in floating cages and fed small fish until they’re harvested at about 6 months, as they near maturity. In 2012, the industry was valued at $2 million.
As a measure to maintain Indonesia’s wild lobster stocks and develop the aquaculture sector, the new export policy requires exporting companies to partner with aquaculture farmers and commit to releasing 2% of their harvest back into the wild, Sakti said. Those same requirements were also in place when Sakti’s predecessor, Edhy Prabowo, also lifted the export ban in May 2020. That experiment lasted only briefly, however, ending after Edhy was arrested and jailed for taking bribes to award the export licenses.
At least five companies from Vietnam have reportedly expressed interest in investing in Indonesian lobster farming as part of the export resumption. Investigative newsmagazine Tempo reported that these companies have already formed joint ventures with Indonesian counterparts. It found that several of the Indonesian officers of these joint ventures are linked to various law enforcement and security agencies and political parties. Some of the companies also list obscure office addresses, the Tempo investigation found.
Some experts warn the resumption of exports will be of far greater benefit to Vietnam’s already competitive lobster-farming industry than to Indonesia’s.
“It could just happen one day that Indonesia doesn’t have any lobster left because the larvae has all been exported, meanwhile other countries will have the lobsters,” Piter Abdullah, executive director of the think tank Segara Research Institute, said as quoted by Mongabay Indonesia.
Basten Gokkon is a senior staff writer for Indonesia at Mongabay. Find him on 𝕏 @bgokkon.
See related from this reporter:
Indonesia offers lobster larvae exports to Vietnam in exchange for investment
Citation:
Jones, C. M., Le Anh, T., & Priyambodo, B. (2019). Lobster aquaculture development in Vietnam and Indonesia. In: E. Radhakrishnan, B. Phillips, & G. Achamveetil (Eds.), Lobsters: Biology, Fisheries and Aquaculture. Springer, Singapore. doi:10.1007/978-981-32-9094-5_12
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