Mongabay series: Indonesian Fisheries

JAKARTA — Indonesia has once again enforced a full ban on the use of a group of seine and trawl nets that threaten the sustainability of the country’s fish stocks.…

JAKARTA — Indonesia is expanding its longline fishing fleet in the high seas as part of its plan for a world-leading sustainable tuna fishery by 2025. The Indonesian fisheries ministry…

JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has sentenced disgraced former fisheries minister Edhy Prabowo to five years in jail in relation to a controversial policy to resume exports of lobster larvae.…

JAKARTA — Hundreds of Indonesian fishers protesting against an offshore tin mining operation in Sumatra have seized a dredging vessel they deemed to be operating within their fishing zone. The…

BANGKA, Indonesia — In the lore of Bangka Island, one of the world’s main tin-producing centers, the rocky, white-sand beach of Tuing holds a special place. Tuing Beach is one…

Indonesia has more mangrove forests than anywhere else on Earth. The country's 17,500 islands house around 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) of mangrove, or one-fifth of the world's remaining…

BANGKA, Indonesia — For more than two decades Ardianto has walked to the coastal mangrove trees from his village in Indonesia’s Bangka Island at sunrise with a triangular net, searching…

JAKARTA — Researchers in Indonesia are working to identify the best practices for safely releasing threatened manta rays and devil rays that are caught alive unintentionally by fishers. Populations of…

LAMONGAN, Indonesia — President Joko Widodo met with fishermen in East Java last week for a discussion on fishing gear policy, infrastructure and how the COVID-19 pandemic had affected their…

DENPASAR, Indonesia — Lung damage, hunger and disorientation have been cited as the factors that led a pod of 52 pilot whales to a mass stranding on an Indonesian island…

With much of the accessible lowland primary forests in Sumatra and Borneo cleared and converted for agriculture and industrial plantations, the Indonesian half of New Guinea is the last stand…

Celine van Bijsterveldt and her team had traveled to Central Java’s mangrove forests to investigate efforts to restore them. But when the researchers saw plastic trash strewn throughout the swamps,…

Indonesia’s snapper and grouper fisheries, together called the “deep-slope demersal fishery,” is one of the country’s most valuable fisheries, worth $500 million. It encompasses more than a hundred fish species,…

Just one of the 52 short-finned pilot whales that washed up on an Indonesian shore last week survived, an official said. Volunteers and local authorities on the island of Madura…

Communities living close to hard-bottomed shallow shores are more likely to hand-catch marine animals during seasons when other types of fishing often aren’t possible, a new study shows. The findings…

JAKARTA — A coal-slurry spill into a river in Indonesian Borneo has killed hundreds of fish and forced authorities to shut off water lines to households. The waste-management facility at…

On the second day of 2021, a whale shark drifted into Kendari Bay, in eastern Indonesia, and became trapped when the tide quickly turned. After a 10-hour struggle in murky,…

In September 2020, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) released a new USCG IUUF Strategic Outlook. The USCG created such a comprehensive position and strategy in reiterating the U.S.'s strong…

In Indonesia, the year 2020 has been marked by a number of events and decisions with significant, and likely long-lasting, environmental impacts. Here, we review five of the key stories…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government will reopen some of its waters to fishing with seine and trawl nets, drawing criticism over the destruction wrought by this practice. The fisheries ministry…

JAKARTA — The arrest of Indonesia’s fisheries minister on bribery charges has prompted a freeze on exports of lobster larvae, but a top official has indicated this is unlikely to…

JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have arrested the country’s fisheries minister on charges of corruption related to a controversial policy to resume exports of baby lobsters. Agents from the Corruption…

JAKARTA — Eighty-eight Indonesian sailors have recently been repatriated from a notorious Chinese fishing fleet where six of their compatriots died under harsh working conditions. The Indonesian Foreign Ministry announced…

Another Indonesian crew member has died aboard the Long Xing 629, a Chinese vessel alleged to have used forced labor to engage in illegal fishing, including shark finning, Mongabay has…

JAKARTA — When Indonesian lawmakers passed a hugely controversial deregulation bill on the evening of Oct. 5, Sulaiman was with his fellow fishermen who had just returned home from the…

A year ago, Bali’s environmentalist community was cautiously celebrating the cancellation of a massive land reclamation project planned for Benoa Bay. The permit for the 30 trillion rupiah ($2 billion)…

In late July, a high-speed chase stirred the waters northeast of Indonesia’s Natuna Islands, as patrol officers pursued a Vietnamese vessel suspected of illegal fishing. Having fled when authorities approached…

LOMBOK, Indonesia — Jafarudin, a fisherman from Indonesia’s Lombok Island, had been looking forward to the resumption of baby lobster exports. Months before the Indonesian fisheries ministry made an official…

JAKARTA — Proper management of plastic waste is lacking in coastal communities in Indonesia, the No. 2 contributor to the ocean plastic crisis. That’s the conclusion of a recently published…

JAKARTA — A new paper calls for greater coordination by governments around the world to tackle the persistent problem of organized crime in the fisheries industry impacting the wider economy.…