Has Banda been fished out??

[Steelyeyes]

Been diving in SE Asia for almost a decade now. My suggestion: Get your diving in as soon as possible and as many times as you can. The conditions are declining. I can't comment about the pace or the speed of deterioration, but one can certainly see the difference. And it's not just the big fish. The small fish are going away as well. Case in point: Few years back, there were lots of box fish at Tioman and now, it is difficult to spot them.

That seems to be a common theme pretty much everywhere.

 

[FilmDork]

Thanks for all the feedback, guys.

I suppose timing could be an issue at play in my friend's experience. It seems that all dive reports I've seen have been in the Sept-Nov time frame (not surprising as that's supposedly peak hammer season).

My friend dove Banda in either April or May of last year. Has anyone been diving there in spring, rather than fall?

 

[Dan]

Not this year but in 2016 there was very very industrial longline stretching for who knows how long around Manuk. I removed what I could with my dive guide for the entire last dive...pretty disheartening to realise I'd only removed a drop in the ocean so to speak. Will see if I can rustle up the photo...this was no local Fishermans line, it had been spooled out from a mothership Another diver who had done Manuk before said "it wasn't the same Manuk".
I had not dived Manuk before so I have no personal comparison but have no reason to doubt the other divers comments as they had done Banda Sea several times prior.

I think after your trip, fishing ministry of Indonesia confiscated illegal fishing boats & blew them up as shown here:


So, illegal fishing might be less of a problem since then.

I did see improvement in Raja Ampat since 2009. I went there about 7 times in the last 9 years.

 

[CarcharodonCarcharias]

...shhhh... !!!!
Remember what we Alor fans agreed about keeping our mouth shut?

Share it, don't hide it.

 

[CarcharodonCarcharias]

I think after your trip, fishing ministry of Indonesia confiscated illegal fishing boats & blew them up as shown here:


So, illegal fishing might be less of a problem since then.

I did see improvement in Raja Ampat since 2009. I went there about 8 times in the last 9 years.

The "illegal fishing" is limited only to the foreign fishing vessels. The boats that Susi Pudjiastuti blows up are all foreign registered fishing boats.

Indonesia slams Vietnam for disrupting arrests

I am sure all the efforts helps but that still does not prevent the Indonesian registered vessels from illegal or poaching activities. The only difference is that Indonesian boats won't get blown up.

 

[Indah]

There are 10.000 foreign vessels less in Indonesian waters now. The amount of fish increased dramatically over the last couple of years. Probably 5 years ago it was at an all time low. I never saw so much fish in my life in one dive as during my dives last September near Rao, Morotai.
'One fish at a time': Indonesia lands remarkable victory
Indonesia, the world’s largest tuna fishing nation, has pulled out all the stops in recent years to transform the health of an industry blighted by depleted stocks and illegal poaching.

Measures by the government – which have even included the bombing of foreign vessels fishing illegally in Indonesian waters – have helped fish stocks more than double in the last five years.

But now the industry has reached another important milestone: one of Indonesia’s tuna fisheries has become the first in the country – and second in south-east Asia – to achieve the gold standard for sustainable practices.

 

[Wisnu]

The illegal fishing is not limited to foreign vessels only. At least 26 Indonesian flagged vessels are sunk by her.
Despite political prsseures from various parties inclufdeng her colleagues ministers, she is keep going on.
She also ban the use of cantrang (trawl) – a kind of Danish seine net, a fishing instrument identified as unsustainable and not environmentally friendly

Big fishing industries do not like her, but small fishermen adore her.

 

[Centrals]

With the rapid growing population, Indonesia does not need outside help to deplete her fishing stock.
Unfortunately she is NOT alone here. Same issue all over SE Asia and probably beyond.

"Sustainable practice"? I wasn't born yesterday!

 

[Dan]

There are 10.000 foreign vessels less in Indonesian waters now. The amount of fish increased dramatically over the last couple of years. Probably 5 years ago it was at an all time low. I never saw so much fish in my life in one dive as during my dives last September near Rao, Morotai....

I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one who has noticed this increase of fish density in the last 4 years (~300 dives) in Indonesia.

I remember walking from my bungalow to the restaurant & looking down to the lagoon in Misool Eco Resort (MER) back in 2014, I counted about 10-15 juvenile blacktip sharks swimming In the shallows. That place was used to be the fisherman’s shark finning station. Nowadays marine park rangers (formed & trained by MER owner, Andrew Miners) patrol the no-take zone around MER.

I’ve been to Misool about 4 times (3 times by liveaboards). The first time was in 2010. I remember Andrew radioed with his fine bahasa Indonesia, warned our captain for not anchoring onto the corals, as most boats would do outside that area.

 

[Indah]

With the rapid growing population, Indonesia does not need outside help to deplete her fishing stock.
Unfortunately she is NOT alone here. Same issue all over SE Asia and probably beyond.

"Sustainable practice"? I wasn't born yesterday!

Would be great to see numbers to this strong opinion Centrals. My personal impression (sorry, no numbers either) is that the majority of the Indonesian People do not eat fish from the sea.