By: Sasi (Maluku Fisheries Officer WWF Indonesia)

For the past few months, reef or demersal fish have been hard to come by on Kasuari Island, Buano. Buano Island, which is still a cluster with Kelang Island and Manipa Island, Huamual Belakang Subdistrict, is still in the Seram Regency area, Maluku Province. Bad weather and seasonal changes make it difficult for them to find reef fish. In fact, their income comes from reef fish such as grouper, snapper and yellowtail. Most of the fishermen on Kasuari Island who usually catch reef fish or demersal fish have switched to catching tuna fish.

Kasuari Island is one of the islands in the Buano Island group, Maluku Province. The island is located around Valentine Bay. Most of the people on Kasuari Island work as fishermen. This small island has little land so that the residents only rely on sea products to support their families. Although there are a small number of residents who cultivate crops around Valentine's Bay.

From the results of daily fisheries data collection conducted by WWF-Indonesia enumerators with the support of the USAID Sustainable Ecosystems Advanced (SEA) Project, the target fish for daily data collection is reef fish or demersal. The types of reef fish commonly caught by fishermen on Kasuari Island are snapper, grouper, and yellowtail. The number of fishermen catching demersal fish was quite large in November 2017. However, over time, demersal fish fishermen have decreased. Moreover, November to March is known as the west wind season which causes bad weather in the ocean. Fishermen do not dare to go too far out to sea and there are some fishermen who do not go out to sea at all.< br />

Demersal fish fishermen began to decrease from December 2017 to February 2018. There were only 7 out of 27 fishermen who caught demersal fish. This means that 75% of fishermen on Kasuari Island have switched to fishing for large pelagic fish such as tuna. In addition, there are also fishermen who become crew members of purse seine vessels to catch kites.

This was also experienced by Mr. La Maindo, one of the respondents in the daily fisheries data collection. He talked about the condition of capture fisheries on Kasuari Island. He said there are 2 reasons why many fishermen have switched to large pelagic fish such as tuna, namely the reasons for the tuna fishing season and income.

La Maindo said that fishermen on Kasuari Island are fishermen who do not settle in just one focus of fishing or commonly called seasonal fishermen. "When it is demersal fish season, they catch demersal fish and when it is tuna season, they become tuna fishermen," said La Maindo. In addition, the tuna fish commodity on Kasuari Island is very abundant during the tuna season. In fact, there are fishermen who catch up to 10 tuna fish in just one fishing trip.

For La Maindo, being a tuna fisherman is very profitable because the price of tuna fish is quite expensive and can meet daily needs. The income of demersal fishermen can lose to the income of tuna fishermen. This is what makes most fishermen on Kasuari Island choose to switch to tuna fishermen for a while. While waiting for the season to improve, they will continue to catch tuna until the tuna season ends and is replaced by reef fish.