By Novita Eka Syaputri

After previously addressing the fisheries community in North Sumatra, the Seafood Savers Open Discussion Roadshow was held again in Jakarta (10/6) and Surabaya (12/6) to invite fisheries industry players as well as local governments, academics, retailers, hotels, and financial institution groups to sit together to discuss concrete steps towards sustainable fisheries.

From the academic side, Head of the Center for Coastal and Marine Resources Studies of IPB Luki Ardianto in his presentation also emphasized that one of the keys to the development of the fishing industry is investment, not only in the form of capital but also investment in the form of sustainability. This means that companies must also invest to support sustainable fisheries practices for a sustainable business as well.

Different from the Open Discussion held in Medan, the discussion in Jakarta and Surabaya was more lively with many questions and inputs from the association and company side. Fisheries companies asked many questions about ASC and MSC ecolabel certification, the selling value of sustainable fisheries products in the market, and the cost that must be invested to join the FIP/AIP.
One of the discussion participants in Surabaya, Mr. Farhan from PT HMI said that the company is ready to follow the instructed regulations if it supports sustainable fisheries.

The company also acknowledged that fisheries stocks continue to decline. Representative from PT Sekar Laut, Mr. Danniel also expressed his interest in supporting the Seafood Savers program and has entered the identification stage. Feedback from participants was more on the regulatory and investment side. They expected strict regulations on foreign vessels that illegally fish in Indonesia and encouragement to invest in local entrepreneurs in the fisheries industry so that Indonesian fisheries companies are owned by their own people.

The series of roadshow Seafood Savers Open Discussion ended with the conclusion that each party should do sustainable fisheries practice at the stage that we can. Seafood Savers Coordinator, Margareth Meutia, at the end of the event expressed her hope that the companies present today can join Seafood Savers to jointly build better Indonesian fisheries practices. We #choose2save!