Information Technology for Fishermen in Indonesia: an Approach to Increase Indonesian

Fisheries Industry with Technology.

Indonesia has a very big potential in fisheries industry. As one of the biggest archipelago
country, Indonesia has 17.508 islands, 81.000 kilometer coastline, and 70% of the country
consist of the sea area (5,8 million kilometer square). This geographical condition gives many
advantages for fishermen in Indonesia.
In the opposite to that natural potential, we can see that Indonesian traditional fisherman welfare
is still low. According to BPS (Badan Pusat Statistik) 2008, almost 60% of the poor people are
living in the coastal area which are dominated by the fisherman. This poor condition derived
from some factors that hinder the fisherman good performances. Even though, information
technology can solve some of those factors.
The first factor is the lack of fishermens awareness to the territorial boundary. Many fishermen
in Indonesia dont really aware about the territorial boundary, especially the group which arent
information technology literate. Usually, they just sail based on their sense and intuition to
recognize the territorial boundary. This behaviour causes many problem to the fishermen, for the
example, as we know and see on the news there are fishermen that caught and got shot because
they sailed and fishing through the territorial boundary. The solution for this factor is by using
GPS technology. If the fishermens use GPS technology, they could know the territorial
boundary. It makes them to not passing the territorial boundary that they know.
The second factor is the unpredictable weather. This unpredictable weather causes fishermen
cant sail smoothly and catch fishes optimally. By using weather forecasting technology, this
problem can be handled and the fishermen can decide when the time to sail and how large the
area that possible to be sailed. Thus, as the effect this will increase the number of fish which they
can catch and of course this will improve their welfare too.
The third factor, the thing needed to be considered and not direct related to information
technology, is the less rigid of Indonesian policy about fisherman protection. We can see the
Indonesian fishermen caught in Malaysia territory. The Fishermen claims that based on GPS,
they were still in Indonesian territory. But Malaysian marine police still caught them. It means
that existing technology is still out of sync with Indonesian policy. It will affect frequency of
Indonesian fishermen caught and will make low performance of Indonesian Fishermen. So, the
government and all related stakeholders should gather and make a clear law and policy about
our sea territory and fishermen protection. Of course, they also should monitor and control
regularly the implementaion of that regulatory.
Although technological solution seems gives a good hope, in reality its not an easy task to
empower the fishermen (especially the traditional one) to have willingness and ability to use that.

The reason is we all know that most of the fishermen dont know about the technology, how it
works, and how to operate it. They have been use their sense, and their own way for years. of
course its not easy for them to suddenly change their way. To overcome this obstacle, we can do
more socialization about the information technology, teach them how to use, and make them
familiar and feel comfortable to use that.
Finally, we can conclude that our fishermen in Indonesia still under the welfare condition. There
is some solution with information technology that we can give in order to reduce that problem,
such as using GPS and weather forecasting. Besides, our country should make a clear law and
policy about our sea territory and fishermen protection. Inspite of the reality that its not an easy
task to implement this solution, we should keep trying and make sure that we do more
socialization enough to them about information technology in order to make them familiar and
feel comfortable.

Member:
Aditya Zulfahmi 1206238923
Muhammad Fadli Putra 1206237933
Richard Henokh Kurniawan 1306381912
Tondhy Eko Pramudya 1206277363
Vasko Dagama 1206278100