NEW PARTNERSHIP ESTABLISHED IN INDONESIA

New partnership established in Indonesia. New partnership established to safeguard livelihoods and improve labour practices of small-scale fisheries in Indonesia.

The International Pole & Line Foundation (IPNLF) and Destructive Fishing Watch (DFW) have recently signed an MoU to support responsible one-by-one tuna fisheries in Indonesia. This MoU sees IPNLF and DFW commit to joint activities that will improve the social safeguards in place for Indonesian fishers.

Indonesia is the world’s largest tuna supplier producing approximately one million tons annually. A large part of that volume is caught by traditional one-by-one fishing methods. The social benefits of these fisheries are closely associated with coastal communities and underpin local livelihoods, employment opportunities and food security. As such, securing, safeguarding and building opportunities for Indonesian coastal communities to participate in highly competitive global seafood markets is a key area of IPNLFs work. This new partnership helps advance IPNLFs aspiration to go beyond ensuring minimum social protections are in place, towards increasing human wellbeing and improving the quality of life of the fishers they represent.

Through this new partnership, IPNLF will support the work of DFW by; conducting trainings that improve fishers’ knowledge of their own rights, establishing Fisher Information Centres in ports that allow fisher to submit labour complaints in-person, and ensuring DFWs National Fishers Centre (NFC) grievance mechanism is integrated into all of our Indonesian FIPs.

In signing the MOU, which is effective for 2 years, both DWF and IPNLF agree to the scope of the joint activities that include but are not limited to:

• Support, develop and promote Indonesian pole-and-line, troll and handline (collectively known as ‘one-by-one’) tuna fisheries and their reliant communities.
• Collaborate on policy development initiatives that support fisheries management efforts in Indonesia.
• Harmonise social and environmental data collection efforts aimed at supporting Indonesian one-by-one tuna fisheries improvements and robust fishery management.
• Provide trainings that improves the knowledge and skills of fishing vessel crews.
• Ensure fair employment and safe working conditions on board for all crew working on fishing vessels operating within Indonesia one-by-one tuna fisheries.

Provide education and technical support to fishing vessel crews of their rights, access to legal support, and access to a grievance mechanism through the National Fishers Centre (NFC).