Diver-Harvest

The Day octopus (Octopus cyanea) fishery is an artisanal fishery in Nusa Tenggara Timur, in southeast Indonesia encompassing the islands of Flores, Sumba, and Timor and their associated waters in the Flores and Suva Sea.  Waters within scope of the FIP straddle FAO areas 71 and 57, with the boundary between the Western Central Pacific and Indian Ocean zones running through Flores Island.  The fishery is prosecuted entirely within the Indonesian EEZ and is not RFMO managed.

Fishers capture octopus in three main ways. 1. Shore-based fishing involves daily away-and-back trips from local village landing sites, using small vessels, or fishing from flotation devices.  2. Fishing also occurs further afield and further offshore, using larger mother vessels that bring with them 10-20 smaller canoes: these are used to collect octopus in different locations over a period of a few days at sea. Octopus are collected either from the surface by fishers remaining in their vessels, or by fishers working directly in the water. When fishers work from the surface, octopi are attracted away from structure by jig-like lures (pocong-pocong/kulepa), hooked, and pulled up.  Octopus may also be collected in the water from open bottoms or reef structure by spearing and hand-gathering.  3. Gleaning for octopus also occurs in the intertidal and shallow sub-tidal waters.

FIP participants are fishers/vessels selling legally sized product into supply chains selling to PT Agrita Best Seafood.   

The main objectives of the FIP are focused on data collection and establishing basic fishery-specific management structures under Principles 2 and 3 of the MSC Standard and will also contribute key information related to the target species for Principle 1. 

This regional, Basic FIP, while its own entity, is intending to collaborate with other regional, Basic FIPs to support a future national FIP process, TBD. 

The small-scale and artisanal lobster fisheries of Belize began in the mid-to-late 1950s, with species harvested mainly for export to the United States. Today, the fisheries sector contributes significantly to the economy of Belize, ranking 5th in export earnings in 2015. Spiny lobster and queen conch are the most productive capture fisheries, with more than 90 percent of catch exported to the U.S. The Belize spiny lobster stock is part of a larger target stock that ranges from North Carolina to Brazil including Bermuda, the Gulf of Mexico, West Indies and Caribbean. 

Fishermen harvest lobster and conch from the shallow waters of the barrier reef and offshore atolls using two types of vessels: small wooden sailboats and fiberglass skiffs. Sailboat fishers often fish for six to ten days and carry approximately eight dugout canoes and up to ten fishers, who free-dive and collect conch and lobster by hand using a hook stick. Fishers using skiffs are at sea for varying periods of time, usually two to three days and at times up to a week. Skiff fishers generally use traps or shades (casitas) to attract lobster and harvest using either hand, hook stick, noose/lasso or jamo net. The fleet pursuing the stock that will be part of the FIP is defined as fishers legally licensed by the Belize Fisheries Department and are members of the National Fishermen Cooperative or Northen Fishing Cooperative in Belize. 

 National Fishermen Cooperative and Northern Cooperative are the two largest fishing cooperatives in Belize, representing approximately 80 percent of Belize’s 2700+ commercial fishers combined.  These Co-ops and two private companies are currently the only entities allowed to export lobster, with an average of 500,000 lbs of lobster tails are exported annually. According to Belizean law, the fishing cooperatives are required to sell 5% of their lobster to local markets. The rest is exported, mainly to the U.S.