jan feb mar apr may jun jul aug sep oct nov dec
Figure 15.2. Fishing seasons (black color is high season).
If a fisher catches only a small amount (5-15 fish), he will take the catch home to his wife who
will sell the fish. If he has a good catch (20-30 fish), the fisher will sell them through an
auctioneer (borok). The fish are sold locally, in Passo or in the Ambon market.
A hand liner will on an average earn a net profit of Rp5,000 to Rp30,000 per trip to sea (USD2-
USD12, early 1997 exchange rate). In order to start hand line fishing, certain investments
have to be made. Fishing lines cost Rp10,000, and a box of hooks of Rp1,500, but the major
investment is the boat. Before the currency crisis, a boat would cost up to Rp100,000, but
prices have gone up and a boat currently costs Rp150,000 or more.
Large-scale commercial fishery
Lift nets are common in Hutumuri’s waters. There are no restrictions to the placement of lift
nets in the water. Owners obtain permits from the Department of Fisheries and pay only
Rp50,000 to the village government for a six-month fishing season.
Of all the lift nets, only six are owned by locals and five of these are Butonese villagers. All
the others are in the hands of outside entrepreneurs from the Chinese Indonesian community.
Few villagers have a lift net because, firstly, the village is not traditionally a fishing center.
Secondly, the investments in a lift net are heavy. The price of a lift net before the currency
crisis was Rp50-75 million (± USD20,000-USD30,000, 1996 exchange rate), while in early 1998,
the price had already increased by at least 50%.
Also common in the large-scale fishery are FADs, in this case owned by Butonese fishers. These
fishing installations are also expensive: Rp0.5 million before the crisis and up to Rp1 million in 1998.
The numbers of both FADs and lift nets are increasing, to the despair of small fishers. At night, there
are so many lift nets at work in the mouth of the bay, that they actually form a wall and block the fish
from the bay (Ais Sohouwat, pers. comm.). Most of these large-scale fishing gears are in the hands of
urban businessmen and the small-scale fishers feel that their fish are being taken by outsiders.
15.2 Attributes of the Community and Fishers
Dusun Toisapu is politically dependent on the Hutumuri village and has politically the same
position as dusun Seri in respect to Urimesing. Toisapu has 1,400 inhabitants divided over 264
households of approximately five persons each. Because the number of inhabitants is less
than 2,000, it cannot obtain the status of a desa (lit. village).
In Toisapu, we could not find enough fishers and decided to enlarge the village sampling
area to include Hutumuri proper. Hutumuri has 3,285 inhabitants (including the population
of Toisapu and other dusuns). The 692 households consist of five people on an average. Nuclear
families are common. Approximately 95% of the people in Hutumuri are Christians. About
100 Moslem Butonese villagers are mainly involved in fishing.
Dusun Toisapu, Desa Hutumuri, Ambon Island 197