JAKARTA ~

As many as 2,044 illegal fishing boats were inspected by the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry’s Directorate General for Maritime Resources and Fishery Supervision during patrol operations in 2014.

These illegal boats included 2,028 Indonesian fishing boats and 16 foreign fishing boats, Director General Asep Burhanudin said here Monday at a press conference on the Fishery and Maritime Resources Supervision: Reflections on 2014 and Outlook in 2015.

Of the total, 39 boats 23 Indonesian and 16 foreign were detained for violating Indonesian laws, he stated.

“The last one detained in late 2014 was a Panama-flagged MV HAI FA vessel that was fishing without a certificate of operation worthiness (SLO),” he noted.

To capture these illegal fishing vessels, the directorate general deployed 27 patrol boats. While 13 patrolled western Indonesian waters, 14 monitored eastern Indonesian waters.

Furthermore, the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry plans to strengthen its surveillance capacity to combat illegal fishing in Indonesian waters by building four new surveillance vessels in 2015.

“Under the Indonesian Fisheries Supervisory Ship System program, the ministry will build four new ships this year,” Burhanudin affirmed.

The four news ships, expected to become operational by the end of this year, would support 27 surveillance vessels currently operated by the ministry, he explained.

“We are also doing our best to increase the number of operational days from 116 to 210, taking these eventually to 280,” Burhanudin remarked.

Moreover, President Joko Widodo has ordered all parties concerned in the country to take strongest possible action against foreign fishing boats poaching in Indonesian waters.

“I say, do not nab the foreign fishing boats poaching in Indonesian waters. If needed, sink them straightaway, but save their crew members first. If we do that to some 20 boats, others will think twice before setting out for illegal fishing in Indonesian waters,” Jokowi had said last November.