Resilience of Indonesian fisheries to the current COVID-19 pandemic and future uncertainties

Project Description

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the entire Indonesian fishing industry both economically and socially, resulting in an almost complete cessation of fishing activity in some areas of Indonesia. Indonesian fisheries support more than 6 million people. Tuna fisheries in particular provide livelihoods and food for poor and marginalised members of coastal communities. The current global health emergency has highlighted the fragility of Indonesian tuna fisheries and coastal communities to system shocks and uncertainty.

There is an urgent need to understand the variation in vulnerability across the Indonesian fisheries sector to the current pandemic crisis. This is especially important in the context of future risks and uncertainty in the wider economic, climatic and social environment. In addition to effective reactive management of the pandemic, we need to plan for proactive management and increased resilience of fishery-dependent communities to future uncertainty. We therefore need to understand how and why the impacts of the crisis have varied across tuna fisheries.

We will specifically investigate handline and longline vessels to gain evidence of resilience and vulnerability in the tuna fishery at small and large scales, with wider application of these ideas to national Indonesian fisheries, within the framework of a social-ecological system (SES). Using this approach explicitly recognises the connections and feedback linking human and natural systems and can help us identify areas of risk and vulnerability within the system. New data, from interviews, vessel tracking and market and landings analysis, will be compared to our pilot interview and tracking data collected prior to the pandemic. This project will directly support the current response to the crisis by highlighting which Indonesian fisheries are the most vulnerable and require the most urgent response and support. This project will inform longer-term risk management for the industry.