Hobi dan Komunitas Pemancing Ikan

Kompas, 31 Oktober 2000
Bambang Setiawan


Barangkali generasi tua dulu sulit membayangkan bagaimana hobi mancing bisa menjadi sebuah bisnis yang sangat menguntungkan. Tetapi inilah kenyataan, sekarang hobi ini telah berkembang sedemikian rupa hingga mulai banyak dilirik sebagai lahan mencari keuntungan yang lumayan.

Tengoklah kolam-kolam pemancingan yang semakin hari semakin banyak bertumbuhan di pusat-pusat kota dan pinggiran, yang setiap Sabtu dan Minggu selalu ramai dikunjungi oleh pecandu mancing.

Toko-toko pancing semakin banyak dijumpai di pinggiran kota, bahkan terkadang bisa dijumpai di keramaian pedagang kaki lima, seolah menjual peralatan pancing sama untungnya dengan menjual pakaian atau peralatan rumah tangga lainnya.

Kalau pemancing tradisional zaman dulu cukup bermodalkan joran bambu, kenur, dan mata kail, pemancing modern sudah menggunakan peralatan yang jauh lebih canggih.

Untuk penggulung tidak lagi menggunakan gulungan kayu berbentuk seperti yoyo, tetapi menggunakan reel yang dibeli di toko-toko khusus peralatan pancing. Bentuk dan harganya pun bervariasi, dari yang puluhan ribu rupiah hingga puluhan juta rupiah.

Para pemancing modern, apalagi yang profesional, sudah semakin membedakan antara mancing di air tawar dan mancing di laut. Di laut pun terdapat variasi pemakaian, reel yang dipakai di pinggir dengan yang dipakai di laut dalam. Dan, di laut dalam pun masih dibedakan antara reel yang dipakai untuk mancing dasar dan yang dipergunakan untuk menonda (trolling, memancing sambil melajukan perahu).

Demikian juga dengan joran, di samping variasi harga dan pemakaian, bahan yang dipergunakan semakin bervariasi, mulai dari fiberglass, grafit, fibercarbon hingga boron.

Di Jakarta, kapal-kapal khusus mancing juga semakin banyak jumlahnya. Kalau kita lihat di Marina Ancol, deretan kapal mancing hampir memenuhi pelabuhan pesiar ini. Mereka tidak hanya dilengkapi dengan reel dan joran, tetapi juga depth sounder (alat pendeteksi keberadaan ikan) dan Global Positioning System (GPS) untuk menentukan koordinat sasaran lokasi mancing. Sehingga bagi golongan pemancing kelas atas ini hampir tidak ada kesukaran untuk memancing di lokasi yang sangat tepat.

Dengan adanya Internet, peralatan-peralatan mancing menjadi semakin dikenal dan perkembangan produk-produk baru dengan cepat diserap oleh kalangan menengah ke atas yang maniak pada hobi mengail ikan ini.

Hampir semua produsen alat pancing terkenal seperti Daiwa, Shimano, Penn, Abu Garcia, dan lain-lain selalu bersaing menawarkan produk baru mereka lewat Internet. Belanja peralatan ini secara on-line lewat Internet kemudian menjadi salah satu pilihan yang mulai membudaya.

GEJOLAK pertumbuhan hobi mancing ini rupanya juga disadari oleh beberapa pemancing profesional (seperti Adiwarsita Adinegoro, D J Pamoedji, Adiguna Sutowo, Dali Sofari, Pudjo Basuki, Ponco Sutowo, Yuwono Kolopaking, Dadi Kartahadimadja, dan lain-lain) yang kemudian pada tahun 1993 membentuk wadah dengan nama Federasi Organisasi Mancing Seluruh Indonesia (Formasi).

Wadah yang semula didirikan oleh 18 orang ini kemudian pada tahun 1996 mengubah makna singkatannya menjadi Federasi Olahraga Mancing Seluruh Indonesia (Formasi), hingga wadah mancing ini bukan lagi sekadar organisasi hobi tetapi menjadi wadah pemersatu olahraga mancing.

Beberapa teknik dan peraturan pun lalu dipelajari dan mereka mengadopsinya dari organisasi mancing dunia (IGFA- International Game Fish Association).

Seiring dengan perbaikan peraturan-peraturan mancing, mulai banyak catatan rekor Nusantara yang dicatat di buku Formasi. Beberapa bahkan sudah mulai menempati posisi dalam catatan rekor dunia. Banyak turnamen sudah dilakukan oleh Formasi untuk lebih menggiatkan olahraga ini, dan secara berkala setahun sekali organisasi ini mengadakan turnamen internasional dengan nama Presiden Cup dan Kasal Cup.

Kesadaran untuk berorganisasi rupanya semakin tumbuh di kalangan pemancing. Hingga di samping organisasi formal, beberapa pemancing juga mulai membentuk komunitas maya lewat Internet. Situs http:// www.mancingl.com, atau http:// komparinet.tripod.com menjadi media komunikasi untuk melengkapi kebutuhan pemancing.

Bagi mereka yang mulai terbiasa dengan e-mail, ajang pergaulan menjadi tidak terbatas hingga saling tukar informasi dan pengetahuan mengenai teknik memancing dengan mudah bisa diserap. Percakapan lewat e-mail grup mancing-l@kreatif.com serta mancing-alternatif@egroups.com menjadi keasyikan tersendiri bagi pengail yang ingin menambah wawasan, karena di sana berkumpul pemancing-pemancing mulai dari yang tradisional hingga profesional.

Bisnis mancing yang semakin menggiurkan ini rupanya juga ditangkap oleh Fudji Wong, seorang pegawai asuransi yang kemudian menekuni jasa layanan mancing bagi para pengusaha atau kalangan berduit dengan cara menyewakan kapal lengkap dengan peralatan mancing beserta kru kapal yang siap melayani kebutuhan penyewa. Mereka yang mau mancing tidak perlu repot-repot menyiapkan peralatan dan umpan, karena semua akan dilayani bak seorang raja.

Ia mencoba menggaet pelanggan lewat jaringan pribadi maupun Internet (www.fishingindonesia.com). Di sana ia memasang tarif 800 dollar AS per hari untuk kapal standar, dan 1.000 dollar AS per hari untuk jenis kapal mewah.

"Kalau tidak mendapat ikan sama sekali, dijamin uang dikembalikan setengah," demikian janji Wong kepada calon pelanggannya. (Bambang Setiawan, Litbang Kompas)

Gone fishing

Inside Indonesia
no. 52 October-December 1997


AHMAD SOFIAN explores the lives of young people on hundreds of isolated fishing platforms in the Malacca Straits.

The problem of child labour is not new to Indonesia. Children have long helped in farm or domestic work. But recent economic development has driven capitalists to look to children as sources of cheap labour to push up their profits. Should we just accept this as normal?

One example is the exploitation of child labour on fish traps, or jermal, off the east coast of North Sumatra. This exploitation has been hidden from the public eye for too long.

Jermal

The jermal is a fishing platform at a distance of 15-25 km from the shore. Some are even further out, though others, such as the small fish traps in Langkat waters, are less than 10 km from the beach. Jermal are on average 20 by 40 m in area, but some measure 50x70 m.

About a third of the platform area is occupied by a house. The workers use it to rest, and also for boiling and storing fish. The jermal is made of planks sawn from the nibong palm, brought from Aceh and Langkat in motor boats. The jermal are built in around 15-30 m of water.

The large fishing nets on the jermal are known as tangkul and keroncong, both about 10x20 m in size. These are sunk into the sea under the jermal. Every two hours they are lifted out, emptied and sunk again.

Jermal are found in four regencies in North Sumatra, namely Langkat, Deli Serdang, Labuhan Batu and Asahan. According to data collected by our Study Centre for Child Protection (a non-government organisation in North Sumatra) there were about 1900 jermal in these four regencies in 1995. The North Sumatra Department of Fisheries, however, says it knows of only 369 registered jermal - 23 in Langkat, 81 in Deli Serdang, 192 in Asahan, and 73 in Labuhan Batu. Presumably the department has been unable to keep track of new jermal being built amidst the isolation of the open sea, accounting for their low figures.

Each jermal has on average 6-10 children working on it. If we use the higher number of jermal, observed by the author from several sources, the number of child labourers working on them is 12,000 to 19,000. Even with the Department of Fisheries data, the number would still be around 2,000-3,700.

Jermal are unique to North Sumatra. Elsewhere they are found only in the waters off Cirebon, West Java. But their construction and working system is different from those off North Sumatra.

Daily routine

The total number of workers on a jermal is around 10-16. Of these, six to ten are children aged 14 to 16 years old, and sometimes as young as twelve. There are also foremen and their deputies who supervise the work.

Working hours are not constant. They depend largely upon the seasons, and whether it is high tide (when there are many fish) or low tide (when fish are few and waves big). At high tide, work can start at 2am and not finish until midnight, while at low tide they work from 7am to 3pm.

Workers have to pull in the nets with hand winches in a process called milling. The nets are milled by all hands together, each of them holding a winch, of which there are ten or fifteen on a jermal. Worker safety depends largely upon the cooperation between workers during the mill. It is easy to fall into the sea or be struck by the winch they are holding. In 1995 a jermal labourer off Labuhan Batu fell to the sea and drowned tragically for this reason.

Besides the milling process which is done every two hours, workers have to sort the fish they have caught. Fish are then boiled and dried in the sun. So it goes on every day. There is little time to rest.

Welfare

With such a heavy working burden, jermal owners should pay attention to the workers' welfare. But the reality is quite the reverse. The vegetables, chillies and onions that are dropped from the land once every two weeks are only enough for four to five days. The other days the workers only have rice and fish or cuttlefish. And the foremen only allow them to eat certain fish. If they are found out eating the forbidden fish - valuable large fish such as tuna - their wages will be deducted.

Nor does their salary conform to the high working burden and dangerous risks. jermal child labourers are only paid around Rp 30,000-Rp 75,000 (AU$ 16-42) per month. The amount depends on how long they work and of course, on the mercy of the owners of the jermal. They only receive the money after three months work.

Once every three months the workers may go home to rest for a few days. If they go home before three months are up they get no pay. Often only a few of those who come home to land will want to go back to the jermal. To fill the vacancy the owners pay recruiters to get new child labourers. They sometimes do this by deceiving them with offers of work in factories. To make their work easier, recruiters usually look for their prey around bus terminals, offering homeless children there tantalisingly high salaries.

The description above gives an indication that the problem of jermal child labour is not only a labour problem. There are at least three aspects to the problem. First, the aspect of human rights, in which there has been an exploitation of the jermal child labourers. Second, the violation of labour law, in which normative stipulations such as minimum wages, maximum hours, and a ban on child labour are not observed. The minimum wage in Sumatra is Rp 4,650 a day, which works out to Rp 139,500 a month if workers take no break. And third, there is the issue of a breakdown in the social system when children aged 14-16 years, who ought to be at school, are forced to work, moreover in a dangerous and isolated place.

Incidents

Until now there has been no serious attempt on the part of the relevant authorities to solve the issue of child labour employed on the jermal off the eastern coast of North Sumatra. Incident after incident occurs. The case is exposed in the mass media, representatives of non-government organisations (NGOs) respond, as do some members of the provincial parliament, and then, tragically, the fuss disappears.

The children working on the jermal still experience the worst forms of exploitation. There is no school for them, and no welfare. The working hours are long, and there are unfriendly waves in bad conditions.

In the period 1993-1996 many cases involving jermal child labour were exposed in the mass media. Many more were never exposed at all. In general a case is exposed when parents complain to the provincial parliament, or when a NGO receives information and conveys it to the press.

One striking event was the escape of four jermal child labourers from Sialang Buah, Deli Serdang, at the end of September 1996. The four were Adi (16), Inan (16), Harun (16) and Mistriadi (17). They came from the villages Air Joman and Bandar Tinggi. They succeeded in saving themselves from the Harapan Jaya jermal by jumping off with a plank. They floated in the Malacca Straits for seven hours before being saved by traditional fishermen. Apparently these four children escaped because of the harsh conditions on the jermal, and because their salary was not paid.

The case was taken up by a commission of North Sumatra's provincial parliament. They accepted the four's complaints, and insisted that action should be taken against the businessman who owned the jermal. Some NGOs in North Sumatra supported the initiative. As a result, an out of court settlement was made between the children's parents and the employer.

Such an escape was not new. In early 1994 two jermal child labourers from the same area also plunged into the Malacca Straits and swam ashore because they had been treated inhumanely. Then in early 1995 four children aged 15 to 16 years penetrated the savages of the sea to escape from their jermal in Labuhan Bilik, Asahan Regency, because they couldn't stand the mistreatment.

In 1994 three children were abducted and sent to work on a jermal off Pantai Labu, Deli Serdang. The three boys were Roy, Lungguk, and Minus. They were tricked into going to work on the jermal by offers of a tantalisingly high salary.

Worker safety is another important issue. There are no safeguards on a jermal. Moreover, the children who work there often do not come from the coastal areas and so cannot imagine what life on one is like.

Dilemma?

Our surveys show that children working on jermal gain almost no economic advantage. In practice they are not working children any more, but children who are forced to work, as forced labour. They lose not only their future because of dropping out of school, but also fail to gain the income expected from the work.

Child labour on the jermal is ugly evidence of the downside of an economic transition characterised by labour surplus and family poverty. Indeed, there is a dilemma between these labour surplus conditions on the one hand, and the demand for the protection of child labour on the other hand. This dilemma creates an obstacle in eradicating child labour.

The pragmatic argument is often made that under these conditions it is better to tolerate the employment of children in jermal and elsewhere. However, though some research claims child labour helps the family economy, in our view it merely makes them sink deeper into exploitation, as the case of the jermal children indicates.


Ahmad Sofian is executive secretary of the Study Centre for Child Protection (Pusat Kajian & Perlindungan Anak, PKPA) in Medan, North Sumatra. The Centre can be contacted at Jl Mustafa no. 30, Medan 20238, North Sumatra, Indonesia, tel +62-61-611943, fax +62-61-613342.

Artificial Reef Project

Pemuteran Artificial Reef Project Karang Lestari Pemuteran Bali, Indonesia NEW Ibu Karang--Mother of Corals Photos of Bali's reef restoration project. Additional Bali Reef photos One Additional Bali Pictures Two Overview The world’s largest archipelago nation, with 17,502 islands, Indonesia is an important habitat and eco-balance center for marine life, including corals. Indonesia possesses the richest assortment of coral species in the world (450 species) from fringe and barrier reefs to atolls and patch reefs. Estimates are that Indonesia’s reefs cover 85,700 sq km, constituting 14 percent of the world’s coral reefs. However, today, only 6 percent of these reefs are in healthy condition. Destruction has come from human activities, such as dynamite and cyanide fishing, pollution, global warming, increased turbidity, over-exploitation and environmentally-unfriendly tourism. Immediate economic gains do not offset the loss and destruction of reefs. Damaged coral reefs take year to recover naturally. Protected artificial reef regeneration speeds nature’s process in restoring coral growth and in even shorter order, providing a protected environment for fish regeneration. The Pemuteran Karang Lestari Coral Conservation project, off West Bali National Park, is Indonesia’s first step in the right direction. Introduction Sustainable eco-tourism requires protection of natural beauty. Yet, conservation often conflicts with traditional resource users. For example, fish are more valuable when they can be viewed repeatedly by divers and snorkelers, versus their value as a single meal. Pemuteran lies in the shadow of mountains to the south and to the north is Menjangen Island, famous for diving and nature treks. Pemuteran receives less rainfall than other island areas during rainy season and is too dry for rice cultivation. Its people traditionally live from the sea. Pemuteran has the largest area of shallow coral reefs in Bali that are easily accessible, because the area is calm and free of strong currents and waves which affect most other parts of the island. The spectacular coral reef growth near land made for a diving and snorkeling paradise. Because the area is furthest from the island’s main tourism centers to the south, it was quiet and unspoiled. Hotels and dive shops were pioneered by Mr. Agung Prana and Mr. Chris Brown, respectively, who worked closely with the village to protect the area. Pemuteran community declared that the reefs in front of the beach where most hotels are located, as protected no-fishing zones, for eco-tourism use only. Local fishermen banned bomb and cyanide reef fishing in Pemuteran Bay to preserve what was left of their resources. Through such conservation efforts, the healthy Pemuteran bank reefs drew increasing numbers of divers and snorkelers to view the coral gardens. As a result of this protection, many other hotels and dive shops followed, making tourism earnings a major contributor to the local economy, in a region which previously had few cash-earning jobs—in one of Bali’s economically poorest areas. The community quickly grasped the meaning of eco-tourism income, which had positive effects on lifestyle and health for local villagers. To ensure conservation efforts continued, strong education, protection and regeneration programs were put into place, to sustain and grow tourism, with income flow directly to the villagers. And then the economic crisis befell Indonesia. Vigilance in enforcing fishing bans lapsed during the economic catastrophe of 1998. Pemuteran’s large sheltered bay, once surrounded by reefs teeming with fish was targeted by migration of whole communities of fishermen from neighboring Java and Madura islands, where their own fisheries had been wiped out by destructive over-exploitation. They brought their destructive bomb and cyanide fishing techniques, steadily destroying almost all of Pemuteran’s reefs. The bank reefs, once full of coral thickets and fish swarms, became piles of broken rubble, barren of fish. By the time the bombing and cyanide ban was reinstituted, the damage was done. Local fishermen now recognize the industry will not recover until the coral reef habitat can be restored. Pemuteran Coral Conservation Project—Karang Lestari Pemuteran In the Pemuteran coral conservation project, hotels, dive shops, village fishermen, scientists and conservationists united to protect and restore coral reefs and increase fishery resources, both for tourism and the local fishery economy. The Karang Lestari Project began in June 2000, when Dr. Thomas Goreau and Professor Wolf Hilbertz, working with Yos Amerta and divers from Yos Dive Shop, built the first coral nursery in front of Pondok Sari Hotel, Pemuteran. In October 2002, an international workshop on design and construction of coral nursery was held at the site and three more nurseries were installed in front of the Sea Temple. In April 2001, 19 more coral nurseries were installed in front of Taman Sari hotel with assistance from Archipelago Dive Shop, and another nursery was added in front of Reef Seen Aquatics. The project uses the Biorock™ method to increase coral growth rates, increasing reef fish density by providing fish with a suitable habitat. All of the nursery structures are located in the Pemuteran Coral Reef Protected Area. Corals transplanted onto the structures attract high densities of all type of fish. As a result of the dense swarms of fish in and around the coral nurseries, they have become the major focus of near shore diving and snorkeling. Spinner dolphins, which vacated the bay due to bomb fishing, last year returned to the site, where they are protected. All corals used in the projects are broken pieces found on nearby reefs where they were damaged by rolling or falling. They would sooner or later die if not rescued and attached to the nursery structures, creating attractive snorkeling and diving trails. This has greatly enhanced marine life in the area. In May 2002, seven new fish habitats were deployed in fishing grounds east of the protected area. Like the previous ones, these projects were constructed without any program funds, save a single workshop grant and small donations from area businesses, local hotels, dive shops and visitors. News of the Karang Lestari project’s success has spread rapidly through Bali’s hotels, dive shops and villages, with requests for projects coming frequently. Funding is required for larger scale training to spread the projects. Students from Udayana and Bogor universities, Bali and Java respectively, have begun research programs on the project. Technology Low technology Mineral Accretion (Biorock™ methods are used to restore damaged coral reefs and reef fisheries, develop mariculture alternatives, preserve biodiversity and sustain reef-related eco-tourism economies for coastal communities. Steel lattice bases, submerged in the sea and charged with a minimal electrical current generate natural limestone rock growth on the base, which increases growth rates of corals and other reef organisms. Corals on the mineral accretion structures, because of their higher growth rate and healthier metabolism, reproduce more quickly and prolifically, because of healthier metabolism. They become key to restocking the surrounding reefs. The infrastructure for Mineral Accretion coral regeneration is so simple, that it can be replicated with very little skill or training, few materials and direct, alternate, solar or wave-generated electrical current. As of May 2002, 22 Mineral Accretion coral nurseries spanned 222 meters were operating in the 2.4 hectare Pemuteran Village Protected Area along 200 meters of coastline. Annually, these structures consume about 4 kw of electrical power. Community Involvement A community based approach to conservation followed tourism-based businesses in Pemuteran. The project has been funded and staffed by voluntary efforts and modest donations. This project has made it clear that restoring coral growth can bring fish back. Local fishermen see the schools of many kinds of fish attracted to the coral nurseries, as they pass over them en route to their fishing grounds miles off shore. There they spend the day searching for the few fish in a barren wasteland. The fishermen are eager to see the coral nurseries expanded and fish habitat constructed in areas near their fishing grounds. They protect the projects and keep records of the fish caught in areas nearby as part of an experiment to improve the fisheries. They want fishermen from other areas to know what they are doing and why, and that they could do the same thing in their areas so they wouldn’t have to fish at Pemuteran. Besides the economic interest of improved subsistence fishing, the local villagers have taken the initiative to start up dolphin watching tours. With coral regeneration and fishing bans in the bay, spinner dolphins have returned in significant numbers. The village also retains rights to all snorkeling income from tourists. Both of these income alternatives, in a traditional fishing community, serve to reinforce their basic understanding that each fish has more value in the sea than in a net or on the end of a fishing line. Alternative income avenues are made available. Thus, they have become avid proponents of conservation and eco-tourism, for economic and environmental benefits. The nursery structures already attract dense populations of juvenile reef fish, resting fish schools and fish that only shelter in live coral, as well as other marine organisms. Young fish of many species are attracted to the sites to metamorphose from larval stages into juveniles. Snappers use the structured to hide in the daytime, forming schools so dense that it is impossible to see the other side of the structure. Batfish are regular habitants. Damselfish and cleaning fish quickly establish territories. These unusual underwater stations already are major tourist attractions. The Pemuteran pilot projects, the largest of their kind in the world, exceed the size of all other mineral accretion projects worldwide, combined. Future Plans Karang Lestari is the first step to restore as much as possible of Pemuteran’s damaged reefs. More fishery projects are planned along the coast and fishermen are eager to educate colleagues from other areas about the new methods so that they can be applied in other own areas and prevent encroachment upon Pemuteran’s fishing grounds. They are eager to change from hunting fish to farming them, and to secure sustainable fisheries and tourism attractions for future generations. This only will be possible if the current pilot projects are expanded in scale to major fishing areas, the banks north of Pemuteran and beyond. Funding is sought to train fishermen to build large, solar-powered fish and coral nurseries on the banks as part of a long-term coral reef restoration program. Many locations around Bali already have requested project start-ups. New research and training programs in coral reef restoration, mariculture and ocean energy development could be started soon as part of a new Marine Research Center in the Biology and Environmental Sciences departments at Bali’s Udayana University. A potential site for a research laboratory has been identified at Nusa Lembongan island, off Bali’s southeastern coast. Support for these projects has been committed by the Indonesian Dive and Water Sports Federation, the Bali Tourism Association, the Governor of Bali and Indonesian ministries of Culture and Tourism, Environment, Marine Affairs and Fisheries. At the National Coastal Zone Management Conference on Bali in May, Karang Lestari Pemuteran was selected as the best coastal project in the country and recognized with a cash prize equivalent to US$500. Culture and Tourism Minister I Gede Ardika presented the project’s success story at the United Nations Preparatory Committee & Ministerial Meeting of the World Summit, held in Bali in late May and early June. Numerous newspaper and magazine articles have been published about the Pemuteran project. The project is being documented by an international film team for distribution world wide.