South of the South China Sea Fun: Indonesia and U.S. to Work Together Off Indonesian Waters

ABS-CBN News reports "Indonesia, US plan joint patrols on edge of Indonesian waters":

Indonesia and the United States have planned to carry out joint patrols around the outer maritime boundaries of Indonesian territorial waters in an effort to combat illegal fishing and human trafficking, Indonesia's Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries said Wednesday.

Indonesia has been cracking down on illegal fishing recently as set out by Nick Wadhams and Bill Faries of Bloomberg in"Blowing Up Boats Sets Indonesia’s Scarce Fish Swimming Again":

Since the end of that year, Indonesia has destroyed 220 foreign boats. It has also faced increased Chinese claims that waters surrounding the gas-rich Natuna Islands are part of traditional Chinese fishing grounds.
“We catch them and we sink them,” Pudjiastuti said of the boats. “That’s the new rule, the national consensus.”
“If you fish in my EEZ, that’s illegal fishing,” she said, referring to Indonesia’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone. “If that fish is in my EEZ, that’s mine. If that fish swims past the EEZ, that’s anybody’s.”

See my previous posts on Indonesia and its push back against China's aggressive claim to SCS ownership China's Fishing Fleet: Apparently Only Chinese Waters Are Sovereign and Malaysia Complains About Chinese Fishing Fleet "Intruding" Into Its Waters, Indonesia Continues Protest of Chinese Incursions.

Why the fuss? Nice discussion of part of the issues in the SCS region at Fishing, not oil, is at the heart of the South China Sea dispute:

For a relatively small (around 3 million square kilometres) patch of the oceans, the South China Sea delivers an astonishing abundance of fish. The area is home to at least 3,365 known species of marine fishes, and in 2012, an estimated 12% of the world’s total fishing catch, worth US$21.8 billion, came from this region.

These living resources are worth more than money; they are fundamental to the food security of coastal populations numbering in the hundreds of millions.

Indeed, a recent study showed that the countries fringing the South China Sea are among the most reliant in the world on fish as source of nutrients. This makes their populations especially susceptible to malnutrition as fish catches decline.

These fisheries also employ at least 3.7 million people (almost certainly an underestimate given the level of unreported and illegal fishing in the region).
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The South China Sea’s fisheries are seriously over-exploited.

Last year, two of us contributed to a report finding that 55% of global marine fishing vessels operate in the South China Sea. We also found that fish stocks have declined 70% to 95% since the 1950s.

Over the past 30 years, the number of fish caught each hour has declined by a third, meaning fishers are putting in more effort for less fish.

This has been accelerated by destructive fishing practices such as the use of dynamite and cyanide on reefs, coupled with artificial island-building. The coral reefs of the South China Sea have been declining at a rate of 16% per decade.

Even so, the total amount of fish caught has increased. But the proportion of large species has declined while the proportion of smaller species and juvenile fish has increased. This has disastrous implications for the future of fishing in the South China Sea.

Over-fished and vital to the local populations surrounding the SCS.

Perfect source for conflict.

Indonesia has also entered into a joint patrol agreement with the Philippines:

The Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Wiranto said Indonesia and the Philippines have reached an agreement to conduct joint patrol on the Sulu waters in the Philippines.

“Joint maritime patrols will be carried out to monitor Sulu waters, which is prone to piracy,” Wiranto said yesterday, September 14, 2016, at Senayan Parliamentary Complex Jakarta.

According to Wiranto, the respective countries’ armed forces will be allowed to handle pirates in the Sulu waters. The agreement will enable Indonesian personnel to pursue and subdue pirates even if they crossed the Philippine borders. Previously, Indonesia had encountered difficulty for its inablility to cross the Philippine waters in hot pursuit of pirates. “It’s a key issue,” he said.

For those who may have forgotten, Indonesia is the world's fifth most populous country (if you count the EU as a single entity) with 255+ million people. 6000 inhabited islands (out of 17,000) and a bumper crop of volcanoes.

Following up on our radio show, "Episode 345: Fisheries as a Strategic Maritime Resource"



UN FAO report - The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2016:
Contributing to food security and nutrition for all:

Fisheries and aquaculture remain important sources of food, nutrition, income and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people around the world. World per capita fish supply reached a new record high of 20 kg in 2014, thanks to vigorous growth in aquaculture, which now provides half of all fish for human consumption, and to a slight improvement in the state of certain fish stocks due to improved fisheries management. Moreover, fish continues to be one of the most-traded food commodities worldwide with more than half of fish exports by value originating in developing countries. Recent reports by high-level experts, international organizations, industry and civil society representatives all highlight the tremendous potential of the oceans and inland waters now, and even more so in the future, to contribute significantly to food security and adequate nutrition for a global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050.

Yes, it's 204 pages of pdf, but well worth looking through.

Lots of good info:

The state of the world’s marine fish stocks has not improved overall, despite notable progress in some areas. Based on FAO’s analysis of assessed commercial fish stocks, the share of fish stocks within biologically sustainable levels decreased from 90 percent in 1974 to 68.6 percent in 2013. Thus, 31.4 percent of fish stocks were estimated as fished at a biologically unsustainable level and therefore overfished. . .

China is the world's largest consumer of fish. On the other had, it is also the leader in aquaculture, in 2011 it produced 61.6% the world total in aquaculture. The U.S. in the same year produced 0.8%. (FAO numbers)

The U.S. imports 90+% (in value) of its seafood, of which about 1/2 is from aquaculture (mainly shrimp). Interestingly,

". . . NOAA Fisheries data shows that a significant portion of this imported seafood is caught by American fishermen, exported overseas for processing, and then imported back to the U.S."

The 2014 NOAA report "Fisheries of the United States" can be found here. This report discusses

aquaculture:

In 2013, estimated freshwater plus marine U.S. aquaculture production was 653 million pounds with a value of $1.38 billion, an increase of 59 million pounds (10%) in volume and 145 million (12%) in value from 2012. Atlantic salmon was the leading species for marine finfish aquaculture, with 41.6 million pounds produced essentially unchanged from 2012. Atlantic Salmon produced was valued at $105 million (up 36%). Oysters have the highest volume for marine shellfish production. (35 million pounds, up 1%) The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that nearly half of the world’s consumption of seafood comes from aquaculture. Globally, Asia is the leading continent for aquaculture production volume with 89 percent of the global total of 70.2 million metric tons. The top five producing countries are in Asia: China, with 62 percent of the global total; India, 6 percent; Indonesia, 5 percent; Viet Nam, 5 percent; and Bangladesh 3 percent. The United States ranks fourteenth in production.

Over 15 U.S. states are producing trout via aquaculture with the leader in that field being Idaho which produces about 75% if U.S. "farmed" trout according to the United States Trout Farming Association.

The U.S. needs to push for more aqualculture, both for the food production aspect and also for the jobs that such production can produce. It's also a national security issue in terms of safe-guarding our food supply.

On Midrats 14 August 2016 - Episode 345: Fisheries as a Strategic Maritime Resource

Please join us for a live show at 5pm EDT (US) on 14 August 2016 for Midrats Episode 345: Fisheries as a Strategic Maritime Resource

We live in a crowded world with limited resources. What happens when this meets modern technology's ability to shorten the time/distance equation and increase the ability to know of what lies below the waves?

What complications do we fine when the above two points meet up with the eternal search by growing nations to reach for the seas to support their homeland's growing needs?

As populations demand more protein in their diets as per capita incomes rise, many nations see the open seas as the best place to fill that demand. With more competing for shrinking resources, can fishing be seen as a security threat? How does it impact coastal states' economic, food, and environmental security? What are the roles of transnational organized crime and state power in this competition. Is international law being strengthened to meet this challenge, or is the challenge undermining the rule of law? More than last century's quaint "Cod Wars," does this have the potential trigger to broader, more serious conflict?

Our guest to discuss this and more will be Scott Cheney-Peters, LT, USNR.

Scott serves as a civil servant on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, and is the founder of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC).

Scott's active duty service at sea included the USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) and USS Oak Hill (LSD 41). His shore duty before leaving active service was in Washington, DC, where he served as the editor of Surface Warfare magazine.

Scott graduated from Georgetown University with a B.A. in English and Government and holds an M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College. Scott researches issues affecting Asian maritime security and national security applications of emerging technology.

Join us live if you can (or pick the show up later) by clicking here. You can also pick the show up later (along with previous epsiodes) from our iTunes page here or from our Stitcher page here.

Fish Stories Part 3: "Chinese Aquaculture"

One of the world leaders in aquaculture, China's system is reviewed in this piece, "An Overview of China's Aquaculture (pdf), prepared by a Dutch agency:

Currently China’s output from aquaculture is the largest in the world and accounts for about 67% of the world’s total production. Moreover, China is the only country in which aquaculture output exceeds wild capture output and where more than 90% of the domestic consumption of seafood is from aquaculture.
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In the period of the 11th 5 year plan, legislation on fishery rights got an important breakthrough. For the first time, it was clearly defined that the farmers’ right of culturing and fishing in waters and tidal area are protected by the law. Some relevant standards for fisheries such as standard of pollution free aquatic product, standard of waste water discharge in freshwater aquaculture have also been set up. Meanwhile, the supervision and testing system of residues of antibiotics and chemicals in aquatic products is improving.
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Nowadays, the main marine aquaculture species in China are shrimp, scallop, large yellow croaker, turbot, oyster, mussel, abalone, sea cucumber, sea urchin and clam. The major culture species have changed a lot in recent years. For example, farrer’ scallop and Penaeus Chinensis were two major culture species in China twenty years ago. However, with the occurrence of serious diseases and variety degeneration which caused high death rate, the two species vanished gradually.
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The main types of marine aquaculture include as follows: 1. land based culture. This type has been used as the major culture method of shrimp. Some marine crab like swimming crab and Samoan crab also are cultured in the ponds. 2. Offshore culture: Floating raft culture and cage culture are two main types. Floating raft culture normally is used to culture shellfish like scallop, oyster etc. Cage culture is relatively a new technology in China and is used to culture some high value fishes like sea bream, sea bass and big yellow croaker etc. Tidal flat culture: this culture method is used to culture the animals with weak moving ability like scallop, mussel, abalone, sea cucumber and clam etc.
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Unlike marine culture, freshwater culture is scattered all over the country. The main species are common carp, bighead carp, silver carp, grass carp, Tilapia, Chinese mitten crab, eel, river crab and shrimp. Most farms of fresh water culture are small scale and distributed in a wide geographical range, which makes freshwater products mainly focusing on local market. Also, in recent years, with the decrease of caught fish outputs and the increase of the price, the outputs of some freshwater fishes such as catfish and tilapia are growing rapidly to meet international market
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China’s aquaculture expansion has mainly relied on increasing the production capacity and farming area (Jorge et al, 2009). Together with the more demand of products, the more space is needed for aquaculture, that caused some conflicts of the fast expansion of the industry. China is a country that short of freshwater resource per capita. In many areas, domestic water is shortage. At the same time, aquaculture in lakes, rivers and reservoirs made the water eutropic and have influenced the supply of domestic water. If wastewater of aquaculture contains too much nutrients, the structure of natural species may be influenced and local ecosystem will be destroyed. The problem has caused more attention of the government. More strict regulations had
been made by the government related with the quality standards of the wastewater. On the other hand, with the fast grow of the Chinese economy; other industries have also developed very fast. Many heavy pollution industries e.g. papermaking, chemical industry would like to build the plants and need a big amount of water. The existence and expansion of these plants have limited the development of aquaculture.

For the seawater culture, the intensive culture has caused the water eutropic in some area. In recently year, the red tide erupted more frequently alongshore. It becomes a vicious circle. The wastewater from aquaculture and other industries made the pollution of the water and cause the red tide. On the other hand, the frequent occurrences of red tide have caused a great economic loss on breeding seafood, fishing, human health, and damaged coastal tourism. How to balance the development of aquaculture and to protect environment is a challenge that need to be solved

A Chinese aquaculture "cage" supplier here.

And an interesting report on the effect of one of China's decisions on aquaculture spreading around the world - this time in the insurance industry here.

Space Station Keeps Watch on World's Sea Traffic

Ever wonder what the world's sea traffic would look like from space? If so, here's an interesting piece from NASA and the ESA, "Space Station Keeps Watch on World's Sea Traffic":

As the International Space Station circles Earth, it has been tracking individual ships crossing the seas beneath. An investigation hosted by the European Space Agency (ESA) in its Columbus module has been testing the viability of monitoring global maritime traffic from the station's orbit hundreds of miles (kilometers) above since June 2010.

The ship-detection system being tested is based on the Automatic Identification System, or AIS, the marine equivalent of the air traffic control system.

All international vessels, cargo ships above certain weights and passenger carriers of all sizes must carry "Class A" AIS transponders, broadcasting continually updated data, such as identity, position, course, speed, ship particulars, cargo and voyage information to and from other vessels and shore.
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The results of the analyses have been very good. On a good day, approximately 400,000 ship position reports are received from more than 22,000 different ship identification numbers (Maritime Mobile Service Identity, or MMSI). In a summary made in Oct. 2011, the total number of position reports received exceeded 110 million messages from more than 82,000 different MMSI numbers.
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The Vessel Identification System, or VIS, could potentially be beneficial to many European entities, particularly in assisting them in law enforcement, fishery control campaigns, maritime border control, maritime safety and security issues, including marine pollution surveys, search and rescue and anti-piracy. Various service entities have already been asking to get access to the VIS data, which is continuously acquired on Columbus.

Here's the image of one day's traffic:

Ship position reports received with the NORAIS Receiver during 24 hours, 29th June 2010. (FFI)

Sea commerce, sea lines of communication, choke points, oh my!