Illegal fishing boats blown up in Indonesian waters

[Sea Save Foundation]

The Indonesian government recently blew up 81 mostly foreign fishing boats caught illegally fishing in their waters. Since 2014 and under President Joko ''Jokowi'' Widodo , Indonesia has blown up 317 fishing boats. Most of the boats were from Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand. Countries have fishing jurisdiction over the 200 mile Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) from their shores out to sea. Read more

 

[tilikum]

I doubt anything will stop or discourage the poaching.

 

[Altamira]

I doubt anything will stop or discourage the poaching.

I am not so sure about that assessment. I think blowing up the illegal fishing boats is a much better deterrent to poaching than the Indonesians sitting on their ass and doing nothing to protect their nation's resources. Of course the poachers may well move on to some other area, as in option 3 in the vote selection above, but if that occurs the Indonesians will still have achieved their goal. The Indonesian's current dynamiting practice appears to be a win-win for them, plus it give them a whole bunch of new mini-artificial reefs.

 

[tilikum]

The penalties for poaching have to be extremely severe so as to outweigh the risk. Whether it is prison time, destroying boats, or even deadly force (no, I am not advocating it). There has to be a huge disincentive to even risk the endeavor.

 

[NYCNaiad]

I don't know that it will stop the illegal fishing, but it will certainly serve as a deterrent for those wondering where to illegally fish & whether they should find another job.

I saw somewhere that it said approx 25% of all illegal fishing in the world takes places in Indonesia. Not sure if that number is correct, but there's certainly a lot of it being done there. They definitely need more people patrolling the waters there as well.

 

[AfterDark]

COOL

 

[Hank49]

The Thais retaliated and blew up some foreign boats fishing here a few months ago.

Maybe the Japanese or Chinese are paying them to do this so they can get all the fish. ??

 

[AfterDark]

Man oh man! We sure are getting a lot of new wrecks in that part of the world! Keep up the good work!

 

[tilikum]

The demand for fish is so high it is virtually impossible to stop the poaching. It will only get shifted to other waters. As fisheries collapse, the demand will shift as well to other species. The extremely harsh reality is to enjoy the diving while you can.

 

[UFOrb]

Whilst I agree there needs to be strong deterrent to illegal fishing and is possibly going to be effective for protecting Indonesian waters, and the wrecks may provide some artificial reefs, this doesn't seem like the most environmentally sensitive way of going about things. Are there not residual fuels and oil and other pollutants on those boats? I'm sure they try to get most of the fuel out but it doesn't take much to cause a problem.

I voted option 1 by the way.