Fishery Improvement Projects

Indonesian Blue Swimming Crab
Fishery Improvement Project

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Species:

Local name (Indonesia): Rajungan

English name: Blue Swimming Crab

Scientific name: Portunus pelagicus

 

Description:

APRI and all members are committed to campaigning sustainability crab harvest to the supply chain for effective impact, increasing crab recruitment through stock enhancement, collaborating with Universities to support scientific research, supporting Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries to develop national Fishery Management Plan and working closely with Fishers community to establish community based fishery management. All project activities are managed in a Fishery Improvement Project (FIP). FIP will create sustainable impact to the supply chain, blue swimming crab resources and also to the ecosystem where the blue swimming crab harvested.

Blue swimming crab (BSC) fishing in Indonesia is mostly carried out by small-scale fishers using boats of less than 10 GT with or without motors, and in some cases fishermen do not use boats. The crabs are caught mostly using bottom gillnets and collapsible traps, and to a lesser extent with the now illegal shallow bottom trawls (baby trawls).

An estimated 90,000 fishermen and 185,000 pickers (working in over 550 miniplants or cooking stations throughout Indonesia) are directly employed in the crab fishery. In addition, several thousand other players are involved in the fishery, including middlemen, operators of miniplants where initial processing is carried out, and final processors/packagers who export the products.

FIP Objectives:

  • Work plan and transition Indonesia Blue Swimming Crab Fisheries to MSC full assesment within the perscribed 3-years
  • Change practices (no take of small crabs/juveniles, no take of egg-bearing females), increase the stocks, develop policies that protect and sustain crabs (including protection of nursery ground, spawning area) by end of December 2022
  • Develop a management plan for Indonesian blue swimming crab that includes community resources management that protects nursery ground; produce a control document by end of December 2018
  • Implement FIP workplan that includes development of the management plan, community-based management, communication and awareness, nursery and spawning grounds protection projects, as well as a hatchery project by end of December 2018

Location: Throughout Indonesia

Typical area of the fishery: Indonesian waters, FAO 71, FAO 57

Markets for the product:

BSC is an important part of Indonesia’s overall export revenue from seafood products. Blue swimming crab is the third highest of fishery product export value, below the shrimp and tuna. The total export volume of blue swimming crab in 2019 reached 12,749 tonnes and the value reached more than USD 259 million.

United States has been the biggest market for Indonesian blue swimming crab exports, purchasing approximately 85 % of the total blue swimming crab export from Indonesia. Other markets includes European countries (France, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium) (8%), and other countries (7%).

Beginning of the FIP:

In 2007, Phillips Foods requested SFP’s advice on a sustainability agenda. Phillips Foods and other major crab processors in Indonesia formed the Indonesia Blue Swimming Crab Producers Association (APRI) in 2007, with the goal of sustainable procurement from healthy stocks. APRI decided to work with SFP to improve blue swimming crab fisheries through a fishery improvement project (FIP). The FIP has been started since 2007, and are still developing until now.

Please download the FIP Achievements and Plans below:

APRI FIP Achievements and Plans 2020-2021 (627 downloads )

 

And you can download the FIP Progress below:

APRI FIP 2008 - 2019 (1934 downloads )

 

Visit this Fishery Progress for more info about Blue Swimming Crab FIP :
https://fisheryprogress.org/