Author: Agis Riyani (AIP Local Facilitator in Java)

KOIN (Konservasi Indonesia) is one of the members of JARING-Nusantara which joined in May 2015. As a member of JARING-Nusantara, KOIN plays a role in assisting fisheries improvements, especially assisting farmer groups to improve tiger shrimp farming practices in Sidoarjo Regency.

One of the groups assisted by KOIN is Eco Shrimp. This group is chaired by Mr. Wachrul Yusuf and has 31 members. To date, out of 31 members, only five members are committed to improving tiger shrimp farming based on practices in Better Management Practices (BMP) with various obstacles.

The average production of tiger shrimp produced by each Eco Shrimp member ranges from 300-600 kg per 5 ha pond. These tiger shrimp are also cultivated traditionally without feed and other chemicals. The production is marketed to several places, one of which is PT ATINA (Alter Trade Indonesia) for export to the international market. To meet the export market, of course, tiger shrimp are needed with good quality and do not contain harmful chemicals. However, is that enough? To increase the selling value, of course, fishery products require ecolabel certification which is now widely requested by importing countries, such as the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) for aquaculture.

Of course, there is still a long way to go to achieve ASC certification and there is still much to be improved in tiger shrimp aquaculture practices. Before knowing what needs to be improved in a fishery practice, an initial overview is needed. An initial survey of the Eco Shrimp group was conducted by WWF-Indonesia's fisheries team on August 20, 2015. The survey covered the legality of the location and group of farmers, pond construction, cultivation preparation, pest and disease control, harvesting, recording of cultivation activities, and social aspects. Based on the survey results, the ponds of Eco Shrimp Group members have the right pond depth for tiger shrimp cultivation and appropriate embankments. There are also mangrove plants on the edge of the pond area bordering the river or sea (green belt) and mangroves inside the pond.

There are many improvement notes from the survey results, some of which are low productivity due to the low availability of good fry and the carrying capacity of the land must be increased to get a good final survival rate (SR). Furthermore, the lack of recording of the results of farming activities by farmers, the lack of water quality measurements, and only one sluice gate for the inlet and outlet were also issues that needed to be resolved. The survey results are used as a reference to conduct an Aquaculture Improvement Program (AIP) which will be assisted by the WWF-Indonesia team.

WWF-Indonesia and KOIN continue to strive to increase the level of understanding and compliance of Eco Shrimp group members with the Wind Shrimp Aquaculture BMP guidelines. This is expected to make tiger shrimp farming production continue to increase and can meet the demands of international and local markets. In addition, it can help maintain the existence of tiger shrimp farming products which are native Indonesian shrimp species.