0 Tuna exports up amid worries of population drop

Bali’s tuna export value from January to October 2013 experienced a slight increase of 1.1 percent compared to the same period in 2012 amid worries that the fish population was decreasing. During that period, Bali’s export value rose to US$63.48 million up from $62.76 million in the same period the preceding year. “The volume also increased, by 15.8 percent,” said the Bali administration spokesperson, I Ketut Teneng, in Denpasar on Sunday. 

Teneng said the island exported 11,758 tons of tuna to several countries in the first ten months of 2012, which rose to 13,818 tons in the same period in 2013. He said the exported tuna, sold fresh and frozen, was caught by local fishermen and companies in the Benoa waters. Tuna contributed the highest income to the province from the 11 species of fish Bali exported. The administration recorded that income from tuna accounted to 15.91 percent of Bali’s total exports of around $398.75 million, Teneng said. 

More than 37.23 percent of the exports were delivered to Japan, the island’s largest market. Other countries included the US (24.62 percent), Australia (5.74 percent), Hong Kong (4.85 percent) and Malaysia (0.69 percent). The slight increase was quite satisfactory said Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Sharif Cicip Sutardjo recently, as the tuna population was dropping. The ministry is thus calling on conservation programs being implemented in several areas in the country. 

“With the decreasing number of tuna caught, and the lower weight of the fish being caught, we see that the tuna population is falling due to overfishing,” the minister said. Sharif said that the conservation program was part of the ministry’s efforts to control tuna fishing. Tuna was a natural resource for the country that was gaining greater interest from local, as well as international, markets, Sharif said. 

As one of the main tuna producers in the world, Indonesia had an important role to play in the fish’s conservation, he added. More than that, Sharif said the southern beaches of Java and Bali were the main locations for blue-fin tuna spawning. “Therefore, we have to take some measures to conserve this particular fish and stop activities that could reduce its population,” he said.

source : bali daily