High tides affect Indonesian fish farmers

Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post 30 Nov 07;

Rising tides in Indramayu regency, West Java, have forced farmers to harvest their fish ponds earlier than expected to avoid huge losses.

Reports Thursday indicated farmers were forced to harvest hundreds of hectares of traditional fish farms early because they had been engulfed by seawater from high tides in the Java Sea.

"The farmers had to harvest early to avoid further losses," said leader of the Indramayu Fish Farmers Association (PPTI), Nono Sudarsono.

Nono said high tides had gradually inundated some 100 hectares of traditional fish farms from Nov. 27.

The majority of damaged ponds are located in the coastal areas of Kandanghaur and Indramayu regencies.

"Most of the damaged farms consisted of milk fish raised traditionally by farmers," he said.

He added the high tides had caused farmers to suffer hundreds of millions of rupiah in damages.

"They usually harvest fish into the third month of raising, but due to the floods, many farmers were forced to harvest earlier to prevent huge losses, even though they had only raised the fish from between one to two months."

Farmers can yield 1.5 tons of fish per hectare under normal conditions, but due to the premature harvest, they have only been able to harvest half the volume.

"They can only harvest around 800 kilograms of fish per hectare at most," Nono said.

An environmentalist from the Workers and Environment Foundation (YLBH), Yoyon Suharyono, has urged fish farmers to replant coastal areas with mangrove.

According to Yoyon, replanting coastal areas with mangrove trees is crucial, since mangrove forests act as barriers against high tides. He said pounding waves could easily reach land and damage residents' homes and fish farms due to the chronic condition of mangrove swamps.

"A mangrove forest can block waves and minimize the damage, but if it's damaged, seawater can easily reach the shore and cause extensive damage," he said.