Demak (29/07/2019) – Susi Pudjiastuti, Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, was impressed with the fishermen in Betahwalang subdistrict, Bonang district, Demak, by using sustainable fishing methods. Mostly fishermen use bubu as their fishing gear.
Susi joined the local fishermen in the Sedekah Laut ritual which held every year. The aim of this ritual is as an expession of gratitude to the God. Sedekah Laut was held off the beach about two kilometers.
During the speech, Susi was highly concerns on environmentally friendly fishing practices as she declared to not catch small size of blue swimming crab and the egg bearing females as she explained that egg bearing females could lay 1.3 million of eggs and minimum the fishermen could possibly earned from the selling is 7.8 billion rupiahs. Susi also asked local fishermen to not using single use plastic and should not dumping plastic waste into the sea. “By dumping plastic waste into the sea, later you will get more plastic waste than crabs in your bubu.”
Susi Pudjiastuti waving to the local fishermen (TFC/Etsa)
Grateful for the blessings of God by maintaining the sea sustainable and clean, Susi said. “The sea is yours. Imagine, the price of the blue swimming crabs that were caught with bubu were between Rp 75,000 and Rp 90,000/kilogram which means it is higher than those caught with arad (mini trawls), Rp 70,000/kilogram.” She added.
Based on the statistics from the last 10 years, showed that Java sea contributed about 46 percents in blue swimming crab production in Indonesia. Betahwalang itself is the home of more than 600 boats that mostly used bubu as their fishing gear for catching crabs.
