Environ Dev Sustain (2006) 8:627639

DOI 10.1007/s10668-006-9048-1
ORIGINAL PAPER

Making a living from the sea: fishery activities

development and local perspective on sustainability in
Bahari village (Buton island, Southeast Sulawesi,
Indonesia)
Daniel Vermonden

Received: 2 December 2004 / Accepted: 18 November 2005 /

Published online: 3 June 2006

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006

Abstract This paper provides a holistic and diachronic perspective on fishery

development within an Indonesian village community. I present the process of
fishery development locally, the regulations relative to different activities as well as
the local cultural framework about the marine environment. Based on these elements, I analyse the local perspective on sustainability and identify the ingredients
for stimulating the development of alternative fishery activities.
Keywords Fishery Sustainability Indonesia Anthropology

Introduction
The development of new technologies and world demography have stimulated an
increase of marine resources exploitation, while international trade has participated
to shape this development. This process has conducted to the emergence of concerns
about the sustainability of such exploitation: techniques used can be destructive,
specific resources overexploited or exploited in a wasteful manner. In this context,
fishery management is necessary in order to ensure the sustainability of marine
resources exploitation.
Local communities have not remained apart of this development of fishery
activities and are also concerned by problems of sustainability. However, the local
perspective on this issue may be different from the global one. To understand it, it is
necessary to study fishery activities and their management from a diachronic perspective but also to take into account the local cultural conceptions about the marine
environment. From this understanding, it is possible to identify what is the local
agency in fishery development and what would be needed to develop successful
alternatives (see also Sillitoe, 1998).
D. Vermonden (&)
Centre dAnthropologie Culturelle (CAC), Institut de Sociologie, Universite Libre de
Bruxelles, 44, Avenue Jeanne CP 124, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
e-mail: Daniel.Vermonden@ulb.ac.be or dvermonden@yahoo.fr

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This paper focuses on a specific case study, that of Bahari village, located at the
southern tip of Buton island (Southeast Sulawesi province, Indonesia). This coastal
village has a population just over 2,000 inhabitants today. The present study aims (1)
to identify the process of fishery activities development, including the local agency
and its limits and (2) to analyse the local perspective on sustainability.

Materials and methods

The data presented here are based on a two-years ethnographic fieldwork (between
1999 and 2002) in South Buton (and mostly in Bahari). In order to gain a holistic
understanding of communities fishing activities, I combined several methodologies.
Materials concerning Bahari include:
Files of fishing techniques (one file for each fishing technique), past or present.
Each file includes the following information: vernacular name of the technique,
equipment (including its origin, sequence of fabrication and variations), species
exploited (vernacular names), areas exploited (place, depth), time (in reference
to day, tide, lunar month and season of the year as well as specific weather
condition if relevant), team (including minimum, mean and maximum number
of participants, age if specific, number and names of specialists in the village),
duration, frequency, popularity, history (historical depth, transformation if
any). I completed 66 files for fishing techniques in Bahari. Collection of data
relied on formal interviews with specialists (21 persons for details about the
techniques, with cross-checking of information between them, plus 25 for
information concerning shark finning expeditions success including details of
catch, sell price per kg, gross benefit of the expedition and share for each
crew), observation, video recording and review with participants (including
fabrication of instruments), participation and implementation of fishing myself.
Lists of sea products (total of 320 fish names, including sharks, and 226 names for
non-fish products, including cephalopods, crustaceans, holothurians, seaweeds,
corals, bivalves and gastropods), with identification and exploration of fishermens knowledge about them based on interviews with 8 persons. For identification, I relied on illustrated books (Allen, 1997; Carpenter & Niem, 19982001).
Exploration of fishermens knowledge about sea products consisted in asking
what they knew about each fish from the list (e.g. place where it is found and/or
fished, behaviour, technique used to catch it).
Collection of the life stories of 10 fishermen, through interviews, complemented
with observation of their activities during the fieldwork period.
Collection of data related to the local conception and understanding of the
environment by close observation of and participation to fishing activities, followed by questions to practioners. It also includes recording of different myths
related to the marine environment and sea fauna.
As usual in ethnographic enquiry, I also investigated other domains of communitys life not directly related to fishing (kinship; canoe, boat and house building,
including ceremonies and symbolic relations to humans and good fortune; sociopolitical organization; etc.).

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Results
I will present successively (1) the development of fishery in Bahari, (2) the process of
shark finning development and diffusion within Bahari community, (3) national and
local measures related to the management of fishery activities and actors responses
and finally (4) local ideas related to the environment and its dynamics.
The development of fishery activities in Bahari
Until the thirties, commercial fishing in Bahari was limited to two types of fishing
activity: collective trap fishing and handlining. Collective trap fishing consists, for a
team of four fishermen usually, to build a dozen of bamboo traps of different sizesthe biggest being a fathom largeand to set them on the reef at a depth
between 1 and 20 fathoms. Traps are checked twice or three times a week. A trap
catches rarely more than 40 fishes (around 10 kg), more commonly between 10 and
20, while some can also remain empty.
Handlining relied on two techniques. The first one uses baited hook on a weighted
line and is called pikaulu in the vernacular language called cia-cia (CIA). The other
one (Fig. 1.tif) uses a lure and a removable weight (CIA bhinca). Productivity of
both techniques is similar and very irregular, from 10 to 100 fishes (around 220 kg)
for an entire day fishing, but usually closer to the first figure. Fish was sold to the
local market (Table 1).

Fig. 1 tif: Bhinca (bh is an implosive b) consists in lowering a line to the bottom, with a hook
equipped with feathers; a stone is hung on the hook. After the line has touched the bottom, the
fisherman pulls it with a fast movement of the arm to detach the stone. Then, the line is pulled slowly
up to the water surface

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Between 30 and 40 sharks per boat

after an expedition of nearly a month,
but sometimes over 100

Teams of 4 fishermen using 12 traps

(checked twice or three times a week).
Maximum of 3040 fishes per trap
(except if catch fusiliers (family Caesionidae,
to 400 fishes). More commonly 1020 fishes
per trap (around 4 kg)
Usually from 10 to 100 fishes (or 220 kg)
per entire day fishing. Average around 5 kg
After bomb thrown on a shoal of fishes,
minimum 50 fishes per hour alone and
up to 500 kg in 3 h for a team of 5
Highly variable: from 0 to a maximum
of 30 small tunas or 4 big ones
(equal to canoe load capacity, 150 kg)
Top shells: around 2 kg/day (715
pieces for a kg)
Depending on size, between 16.000
and 28.000 Rp/kg for top shells and
from 8000 to 100.000 Rp/kg for
holothurians
From 40.000 to 800.000 Rp/kg
depending on size

Price has been up to 8,000 Rp/kg

but has now fallen at 4000 Rp/kg

Same as above

Profit for a boat after an

expedition of a month is
commonly around 1520 millions
Rp but sometimes over 60 millions
Rp. Individual crew share, after
cost deduction, is regularly above
1 million and can reach sometimes
5 millions (and 57 times more for
the boat owner)

For sasi auction winner, over

1 million Rp benefit for
40 days work

Monthly income hardly higher

than 300.000 Rp
Easily over 100.000 Rp for a day.
(Explosive material costs 2,500
Rp per bomb)
Possibility to get over 100.000
Rp after day fishing

Monthly income hardly higher

than 300.000 Rp

Present fish price: between

1,5003,000 Rp/kg. Can be twice
that price in East Indonesia

Same as above

Technique profitability

Product price

Notes: (1) Based on catches observed during fieldwork, completed with interviews with fishermen. (2) Change rate for Indonesia Rupiah (Rp) is 1 = 12.000 Rp

This table shows that the fishery activities developed in Bahari have provided opportunities to get higher income and offer increasing potential profits

Shark finning

Top shells and sea

cucumbers harvesting

Trolling (tunas)
with streamer

Blast fishing

Angling

Collective
trap fishing

Technique productivity

Table 1 Commercial fishing techniques productivity and profitability

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For developing their revenue, local fishermen have relied on three strategies:
extension of fishing grounds, development of new techniques thanks to the availability of new materials and/or access to new instruments, and exploitation of export
sea products. Extension of fishing grounds has been the first strategy to be implemented, facilitated by the development of a local boat building and sea transport
activity. Trap fishing teams were leaving the village for several months on board of
local sailing boats with their canoes and the materials for making traps (strips of
bamboo and liana cord). Fish was sold to the closest market or to a middleman. The
problem in Buton was not the lack of fish but, rather, the lack of market opportunities. Fish price was much higher in Flores and Ambon. Trap fishing technique itself
was not modified, it was only displaced.
Availability of new materials and instruments (cotton and then Nylon for lines
and nets, pressure lights, manufactured hooks, materials for explosives) enabled the
improvement of existing techniques (e.g. Nylon for lines, manufactured hooks) and
stimulated the development of new ones (e.g. angling at night using pressure light).
The most important in the framework of commercial fishing is blast fishing. It is still
today Baharis most productive technique for catching fish. The technique consists in
spotting a shoal of fish and then throwing enough homemade bombs to kill the fish.
Some fishes emerge at the sea surface; it is necessary to dive to catch the remaining
ones. Once the bombs have been thrown on the fish shoal, a minimum of 50 fishes is
collected by a man alone and up to 500 kg within a period of 3 h by a team of five
men. Blast fishing was developed after World War Two, using the ammunitions left
by the Japanese army. Then, this source was replaced by chemical fertilizers imported (illegally) from Singapore by Butonese traders. Up to the seventies, Bahari
blast fishermen restricted their activity to the neighbouring coast. Fish was sold in
the village or in the local market. During the seventies, more fishermen were involved and the fishing grounds expanded further on the East coast of Buton island.
In the eighties, a further development occurred. Teams of 10 fishermen equipped
with a boat and a compressor were sailing south to Nusa Tenggara and east to the
Mollucas for fishing expeditions of one month or longer. There, they were practicing
blast fishing on a daily basis, selling their catch in the local market or to middlemen.
Today, blast fishing popularity has decreased due to the development of shark finning. Those who still practice blast fishing mostly target long-jawed mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta; CIA ruruma) and sell their catch in the village.
Demand for specific sea products has also strongly participated to shape Bahari
commercial exploitation of the marine environment. These products are: top shells
and sea cucumbers, tuna and shark fins. Exploitation of top shells (Trochus niloticus;
CIA lola) and sea cucumbers (Class Holothuroidea, CIA kuto, dhadhao)1 only
developed from the sixties. These products were abundant on Bahari reef but discarded before because of a lack of interest. They were hardly appreciated as food,
villagers were unaware of their commercial value and had no access to traders. Top
shells and sea cucumbers were left to Bajau sea nomads who were aware of their
value and were in relation with buyers. In the sixties, traders from Baubau, the main
city of Buton island, began to buy them at the local market but with a low price.
However, gradual price increase stimulated an intensification of harvesting that
conducted to an overexploitation of the resource. A local system of resources
management (detailed below) was set up in 1985. In 2002, price for top shells was
1

Also pearl oysters (Pinctada spp.; CIA kajapi), but in smaller quantities.

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between 16.000 and 28.000 Indonesian Rupiah (IDR)2 per kg (715 pieces) and
between 8.000 and 100.000 IDR for a kg of sea cucumber.
At the beginning of the eighties, tuna (Thunnus spp. and Katsuwonis pelamis)
trolling became a popular activity. This new activity combines the three strategies
described above. It consists in a new technique, using streamers. Before, fishermen
were only using baited hooks for trolling (CIA tonda). This technique was implemented on a seasonal basis, mostly when shoals of tunas were sighted from the
village. Then, from the sixties, the new technique using a streamer (CIA hokolo)
appeared. The streamer is a lure equipped with features of different colours attached
to a trolling hook. Expertise lies in the composition of streamers colour mix that
must be adapted to fish taste. A fishermen can get up to 100 kg of tuna a day. A
change occurred in the eighties with the development of an industrial tuna fishing
business in Southeast Sulawesi province that also welcomed tuna caught from local
fishermen, transforming tuna in a commodity and stimulating a new impetus on tuna
trolling. Fishermen (including former blast fishers) shifted to tuna trolling, attracted
by the certainty of selling their catch at an attractive and stable price. In 2002, price
was around 4.000 IDR per kg but it has peaked at twice that price (that is four times
the local fish price). Fishermen also ventured further at sea, up to a distance of
30 nm, using bigger sails on their small canoes.
In 1991, a new activity emerged in Bahari: shark finning. The technique uses a
floating longline (Fig. 2.tif). Boats with crew of 48 crew use to operate at sea for
periods from two weeks to more than a month. Fishing grounds extend to the whole
East of Indonesia region, from the west coast of Kalimantan to the Moluccas, and to
the Australian borders in the south. Bahari fishermen sometimes cross the border for
getting more sharks. During the day, the crew looks for bait fish, caught using
different methods (mostly tuna trolling). At the end of the day, the longline is set at
sea if enough bait fish have been gathered. Shark fins are cut and dried on deck.
Shark body is usually thrown back at sea. Sharks meat is not exploited for several
reasons. Fishermen claim that its price (2,500 IDR per kg) is too low for stimulating
systematic processing. In addition, meat processing, especially sun drying, would
require a significant load of additional work and the whole organization of fishing
would need to be adapted. At present, the deck surface is too limited for drying
shark meat, in addition to the fins. Finally, shark meat is not appreciated by Bahari
villagers. Crew may eat some at sea, but only when nothing else is available. They
sometimes dry some for bringing back in the village but always in small quantities.
Fins are sold to middlemen in Baubau. Shark fins are sought after by Chinese
people for making an expensive soup. Fins price is between 40.000 and 800.000 IDR
per kg depending on size. Some boats can come back with more than 100 kg of dried
fins, worth over 60 millions IDR, but mean revenue (before cost deduction) calculated on 25 expeditions is 20.6 millions IDR, with a standard mean deviation of 13.5.
After deducing the costs, the sum is divided in two parts, half for the crew and half
for the boat owner. Average crew share based on the 25 expeditions is 1.48 millions
IDR.
Thus, development of fishery activities in Bahari relied on different activities
successively: from trap fishing and handlining to blast fishing, then tuna trolling and
finally shark finning. How do activities develop and diffuse within Bahari community? I present the case of shark finning.
2

Change is 1 = 12.000 IDR.

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Fig. 2 tif: Local floating

longlines have up to 300 hooks.
Vessels can pass upon the
longline without damage

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Development and diffusion of shark finning activity

Shark fishing using longlines (CIA rawe) first developed in a community of Bahari
migrants installed in Gamumu (Moluccas). There, from 1986 to 1991, fishermen were
using a longline floating at sea surface, with a maximum of 30 hooks. Longlines could
not be longer because of the danger of loosing them if a boat was passing through.
Catch was limited to 2 or 3 sharks per night and dried fins were sold up to 20/kg.
From the nineties, a new technique appeared, the bottom longline, oriented towards
the exploitation of shark oil. This type of longline was longer, up to 80 hooks. Fins
were also exploited, but only as a by-product. Then, the floating longline was
adopted, modelled on the one used by foreign fishing vessels operating in Indonesia.
The activity started in Bahari when two fishermen having experienced the activity
in the expatriate community came back in Bahari in 1991 and began to implement
this activity on their own boats. Diffusion of shark finning in the community was
relatively fast as, 10 years later, more than 100 boats were engaged in shark finning
in Bahari. High profit potential has been a very strong attractor. For those engaged
in tuna trolling, shark finning provided a higher potential profit. For those involved
in blast fishing, another motivation appears in fishermen interviews: the lower
danger of physical injuries (see below). For young men today, engagement in shark
finning is an evidence as no other accessible activity present similar profit potential.
At the beginning, former sailing boats involved in sea transport and trade were
transformed, replaced afterwards by a new boat type (CIA motoro), narrower and
with a long roof.
The process at work has consisted for candidates to join a crew on a shark finning
boat for several expeditions. Engagement in shark finning involves to accept taking a
significant financial risk. Indeed, risk is supported on an equal basis by crew (collectively) and boat owner, following a rule coming from the sea transport and trade
activity. The idea is that the boat and its equipment are borrowed from their owner
for the time of the expedition, owner and crew sharing risks and profits on an equal
basis. In this arrangement, if the boat or equipment is lost, the crew has to pay back
half of its value to the owner.
The goal for each fisherman is to own his own boat. For gathering enough capital
to get a boat, fishermen usually mobilise their relatives and most of Bahari motoro
boats ownership is indeed shared between different relatives. Fin buyers often
provide credits for engines (the most expensive equipment) and for the materials to
fabricate longlines. Through this credit, they make sure that fishermen come to them
for selling their catch.
Until now, no regulation exists for shark finning. However, other fishery activities
have been regulated or forbidden.
Management of resources and actors reactions
There are two sources of regulations concerning fishing activities: government
decisions at a national level and local regulations by sara council at the village level.
Sara is the community traditional (yet unofficial) council (CIA sara). The national
government decreed an interdiction on blast fishing at a national level in 1985 (PetSoede et al. 1999). Sara regulations concern blast fishing interdiction in front of the
village and management of top shells and holothurians harvesting.

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The sara was the official authority at the village level at the time of the Sultanate
of Buton. The constitution of the Indonesian Republic in 1945 and, later, the dissolution of the Sultanate of Buton did not conducted to the dissolution of sara. While
having become unofficial, sara has continued to hold a major role in village
administration. Sara legitimacy has also been reinforced by its recent association
with other village authorities. Sara meetings and deliberations now usually associate
the different spheres of legitimacy within the village, including the village head and
the local army representativeas government representativesand the official
imamas representative of the official islamic religion.
Sara is in charge of custom. Custom is a set of rules in several domain (e.g.
marriages, ceremonies, land ownership management, formula for dividing profits for
fishery activities). However, custom is not fixed: new rules can be adopted,
addressing new situations. If custom law is infringed, sara can impose fines; if needed, sara can decide to exclude a village member. Villagers support to sara is
stimulated by the relation established between harmony within the community and
good fortune of the activities implemented by its members. Respect of saras decisions is also stimulated by the fear to be punished by non-visible forces under saras
control. For these reasons, sara benefits of a strong legitimacy within Bahari community.
Blast fishing
Blast fishing was forbidden at the national level to preserve coral reefs. Indeed, coral
reef destruction is the major problem caused by this fishing method (McManus et al.,
1997). The areas destroyed are left almost empty of fish until coral reef recovers,
which is a slow process. This destruction is clearly observed by local fishermen, at
least when blast fishing is practiced at low depth3. However, saras decision to forbid
blast fishing in front of the village was not motivated by coral protection but aimed at
ensuring the sustainability of subsistence fishing. Subsistence fishing takes place
mainly on the reef in front of the village. Indeed, if one wants to get fish for the meal,
one will not go far away. Therefore, the practice of blast fishing in this area was
problematic, conducting to a depletion of the resources exploited by all village
households.
Saras decision concerning blast fishing in front of the village is rather well respected, in contrast with the national ban. Until today in South Buton, one can hear
the sound of explosions almost on a daily basis. Clearly, the ban imposed by national
law is not enforced. What is the local reception of the national decree and what is the
local perspective on coral destruction caused by blast fishing?
Locally, the interdiction decreed by the national authorities is seen mainly as an
additional risk to an activity that is already dangerous physically. Blast fishers are
more worried about the danger of physical injuries than that of prosecution. Fishermen abandoned practicing blast fishing not because of the danger of prosecution
but because of the risk of serious injuries, especially since an alternative activity with
similar profitability, namely shark finning, was available. However, the nationwide
interdiction has been effective in an indirect manner: it has increased the consequences of physical injuries as fishermen, if injured, do not dare anymore to go to the
3

And it is usually practiced at low depth (between 1 and 15 meters) because it is not possible to dive
deeper without equipment to collect dead fishes.

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hospital, fearing denunciation. In addition, for the local community, blast fishing
presents the advantage to provide a regular and cheap supply of fresh fish at a time
when, with shark finning, nearly all men from the village are out at sea for extended
periods.
Top shells and sea cucumbers harvesting
In contrast with blast fishing, top shells and sea cucumbers harvesting may be a
sustainable activity if it allows stock regeneration. Harvesting of these products
presented two problems in the eighties: an ecological and an administrative one.
First, high prices stimulated an intensification of the harvest, and, hence, an overexploitation of the resources as harvesting is limited to the village territory. In
addition, collectors had to declare their harvest to the village head and pay a tax on
it. However, most harvesters where cheating, avoiding to declare their harvest, and
the village head had no capacity to enforce the rule.
The solution designed for managing the resources aimed at resolving the two
problems. It combined involvement of the village council (sara), import of a management system from the Moluccas, called sasi, and set up of an auction. Sasi
management consists in restricting harvesting for a limited period (40 days in Bahari)4. Outside of this period, a ban is imposed on harvesting, allowing stock
regeneration. A sasi regulation concerning top shells and sea cucumbers exists in
Bahari since 1985. In 2001, the opening of the sasi was auctioned by the sara.
Auction winner paid a million and a half IDR to get the monopoly of top shells and
sea cucumbers (as well as pearl oysters) harvest for 40 days. Any other village
member who wanted to harvest these products had to negotiate with the auction
winner the conditions (time and fee) for getting granted access to these products.
Auction winners rights were guaranteed by the sara. The sum collected through the
auction was divided between the three locally recognized authorities: custom, government and religion.
Thus, management of this activity has not been motivated only by concerns about
the sustainability of the resources but also by the resolution of a tax collection
problem. The solution designed conducts to a transformation of the local socioeconomic organization of the activity: the necessity to invest capital for getting
access to the products, redistribution of taxes between different authorities and
involvement of sara legitimacy.
Before discussing fishermens perspective on sustainability, it is necessary to
present local actors conception about the marine environment and its dynamic.
Local conception of the marine environment
People do not live and act in a natural environment but in a culturally constructed
environment. I identified three local ideas related to fish relations and marine
environment dynamics.

For a recent assessment of sasi institution in the Moluccas, see the ICLARM report: An Institutional Analysis of Sasi Laut System in Maluku Province, Indonesia available on internet (http://
web.idrc.ca/en/ev-30193-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html).

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Marine resources are controlled by a guardian of the sea (CIA ompuno tai).
In the vernacular language (cia-cia), there is no word for natural environment or
natural resources. A guardian of the sea (ompuno tai) owns and controls the
marine fauna and an annual ritual aims at asking this guardian, in collaboration with
the ancestors, to bring again a wealth of resources close to the village shore as well as
safety and success for the fishing expeditions. In addition, before starting to fish close
to the shore of a new island, the boat captain goes ashore to ask the guardians
permission to fish in the area and request his help for the expedition success. Within
this framework, fishing success depends on the good will of the guardian of the sea.
Ecological relations between fishes
The notion of complex ecological equilibrium is not a feature of the local framework. In Buton, the main idea about relations between fishes is embedded in a short
story (CIA cuculano), a genre between myths and tales. The story explains how the
community of fish (including sea mammals) organized itself. The whale was starving
so she organized a meeting to find a solution to the problem. All the fishes gathered
and discussed the problem during a whole day without finding any compromise.
Then, katumende, the blenny (Family Blennidae), proposed the following rule: big
fishes eat small fishes and small fishes eat smaller ones. However, katumende
immediately escaped, taking refuge on tide pools. Indeed, blenny, when disturbed,
can skip over rocks from one pool to another using its body musculature and stout
pelvic fins to skip over rocks (Allen, 1997). Up to now, all the other fishes are still
very angry against him.
Within this framework, the hypothesis of shark extinction is not considered a
problem by local fishermen as, within the above framework, other fishes of similar
size can play sharks role. Rather, it is seen as a service Butonese fishermen give to
humankind: we should be thanked for helping getting rid of sharks because they are
bad anyway.
Fish becomes more intelligent as new fishing techniques are developed.
Local fishermen interpret fish catch decrease not as a decrease of fish stock but as a
change of fish behaviour: the fish has become more intelligent. We have increasingly sophisticated fishing instruments, but, at the same time, the fish becomes more
and more intelligent. Fishes were stupid before. We could catch them with just a
scare line. Another, recurrent manner to express this idea is: Fish is now at HighSchool level.

Discussion
This holistic and diachronic investigation of fishery development in Bahari enables
(1) to analyse the local perspective on sustainability and (2) to identify the ingredients for stimulating the development of alternative activities.
Development of fishery activities has been successful from an economic perspective. However, it has not relied entirely on a sustainable exploitation of marine
resources. For top shells and holothurians, the problems was one of overexploitation.

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Extension of fishing grounds was not possible. For blast fishing, the problem lies in
the technique itself, destructing the coral reef. Finally, shark finning presents two
problems. First, it is wasteful because fins are cut out and sharks body is then thrown
back at sea. In addition, there is a growing international concern about shark finning
sustainability5. An increasing demand and value of shark products over the last
20 years, especially fins, has stimulated a growing fishing effort (Chen, 1996; Vannuccini, 1999). Moreover, many shark species are vulnerable to overexploitation
because they grow slowly and produce few young. Some species have been classified
as endangered by governments and there is an ongoing international debate about
the possible interdiction of shark finning. Some countries have already forbid it6.
The elements presented above enable to get an understanding of these problems
from the local perspective. First, actors assessment of the problem may differ, not
just because of a lack to information but also because of a difference in the conception of environment dynamics. This is clearly the case for shark. Assessment of
stock decrease is more difficult for sharks than for top shells and holothurians as
catches vary widely depending on seasons, fishing grounds and crew. However, one
can observe that the exceptional catches of the first fishing expeditions do not occur
anymore with the same frequency, except for those venturing across the Australian
border. The first teams to implement shark finning were coming back with more than
100 kilos of shark fins. Now, the average catch is closer to 30 kilos But, more profoundly, the cultural conception of marine environment provides several possible
interpretations for such decrease. It might be the sign of a problem with the ompuno
tai or a sign that sharks have become more clever.
Then, awareness of unsustainability does not necessarily conduct to management
of the resource. First, within the local conception of the environment, depletion of a
resource in itself is not considered a problem. The two measures decided by the local
sara were not motivated primarily by environmental concerns. Interdiction of blast
fishing in front of the village did not intent to stop coral reef destruction but to cope
with the negative influence of blast fishing on subsistence fishing activities. For top
shells and holothurians, management of the activity was also a mean to recover the
tax.
In addition, fishing enables a strategy to cope with unsustainability: the extension
of fishing grounds. Finally, sustainability of a specific activity in also not a concern.
Emphasis is very much on the present maximization of profits. If shark finning
profitability reduces in the future, fishermen are confident that new opportunities
will be available to them.
The present study also provides elements for identifying what kind of intervention
would be effective for reducing pressure on shark stocks. The case of blast fishing
shows that the efficiency of interdiction is limited because of the difficulty for the
decision to be enforced. The diachrony of local fishery development however shows
that the set up of alternatives would be an efficient way to reduce the pressure on
shark stocks. Local fishermen are quick to take advantage of new opportunities once
these proved to be accessible and profitable. However, community members agency
is limited for developing new activities and associated socio-economic networks.
Therefore, intervention should focus on the development of new fishery alternatives
5

International plan of action for the conservation and management of sharks (FAO Report 584,
1998).

Among others, the United States of America, Australia and members of the European Union.

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Environ Dev Sustain (2006) 8:627639

639

and make the demonstration to fishermen, in practice, of their accessibility and

profitability. Community members massive move to new profitable activities should
also be anticipated.
Acknowledgments Research in Buton was financed by several grants from different institutions:
grant de Meurs-Francois from Free University of Brussels (2002), grants from Fondation van
Buuren (2004) and Fondation Belge de la Vocation (2000) as well as grants for the Government of
the French Community of Belgium (1999 and 2000). I would also like to thank the two anonymous
reviewers and the editor for useful comments on previous drafts.

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