Fishermen face extreme weather, unfriendly development: KIARA

Fishermen face extreme weather, unfriendly development: KIARA

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 11/20/2013 7:32 PM | National

The People’s Coalition for Fisheries Justice Indonesia (KIARA) recorded that as many as 586 traditional fishermen had been lost or had died at sea due to extreme weather between 2010-2013.
The community-based fishery industry is also threatened by the domestic-development pattern — which is propelled by land acquisition and a heavy dependency on fossil-fuel consumption.

KIARA said climate adaptation strategies based on local wisdom, such as customary fishing rules, and efforts to strengthen the role of customary dispute-resolution practices had been continually ignored by the government.
“The situation has not changed despite policies by Southeast-Asian nations, such as Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines,” said Selamet Daroyni, KIARA coordinator for education and network empowerment, in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

One indicator, he said, was that the construction of coal-fired steam power plants (PLTU) in coastal areas had intensified.

“Our concern is, in developing steam power plants, countries such as Thailand and the Philippines will have to import coal from Indonesia,” said Selamet.
Issues such as these were discussed at a regional meeting, entitled Toward a Vision of Economic Justice and Low-Carbon Society in Southeast Asia, in Bangkok, Thailand, recently.

The event — held by Thai Climate Justice Working Group (TCJ), Philippines Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), and Indonesia Civil Society Forum on Climate Change (CSF) — was attended by participants from Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

In Indonesia, fishing communities and farmers are against the development of PLTU Batang. It is said the project has threatened the sustainability of fishery resources in the Ujung Negoro sea conservation area and will likely damage fertile agricultural areas in three villages: Ponowareng, Ujung Negoro and Karanggeneng – all in Batang regency, Central Java. (ebf)

Source: http://m.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/11/20/fishermen-face-extreme-weather-unfriendly-development-kiara.html