A REBORN OF SHRIMP PONDS IN KARIMUNJAWA

Image 1. Image of intensive shrimp ponds in Jatikerep. It was located outside of Karimunjawa National Park (KNP) area but itswatersupplies were taken from KNP waters area. The drainage of ponds directly set to the KNP waters, because there was no river crossing ponds area. This was the real threat to KNP waters area. (Source: Central Office of Karimunjawa National Park Document)

A REBORN OF SHRIMP PONDS IN KARIMUNJAWA

Written by: Isai Yusidarta, ST., M.Sc.

(Young Expert of Forest Ecosystem Controller – Karimunjawa National Park Office)

Translator: Anninda Nurul Islami

(Directorat of Environmental Dispute Settlement-Ministry of Environment and Forestry)

Around the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, shrimp ponds in Karimunjawa seemed to be brought back to life after they experienced a breakdown before 2000. Why did this happen? Tiger prawn and giant freshwater prawn ponds developed massively around 1990. These ponds occupied most mangrove area until now, the traces of ponds were still there. Shrimp ponds business completely stopped before 2000. The ponds were left behind without any effort of restoration. Now, the former ponds area was covered by mangroves.

In 2000-2017, mangrove trees naturally grew on the former shrimp ponds area. Finally, it restored to its natural function. This mangrove area had shown their resilience to reach biogeochemical balance. The remnants of ponds business such as fodder can be found nowhere. It took almost 17 years for the remnant to bedispersed. Prawn disease that spread out and ruined tiger prawn and giant freshwater prawn ponds were no longer heard. This meant mangrove area in Karimunjawa back to life into its beauty and started to attract investors’ interest.

At the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, in Central Office of Karimunjawa National Park (COKNP), talks about proposal of shrimp pond permit were commonly heard. Investors were seeking opinions from the officials of COKNP. On the field, excavators started digging and removing the now mangrove covered land, turned it into shrimp ponds. Mangrove trees were removed and ponds were built. When ground-check was done, shrimp ponds was situated outside KNP area with total area of 20 hectare.

The Distinctions of Shrimp Pond in 1990 and 2017

There are many distinctions of shrimp ponds in 1997 and now. A new shrimp pond in Karimunjawa used intensive ponds system that meant to prevent contact from water and shrimps and soil, to build waterwheel for maintaining optimum dissolved oxygen in waters, and to provide synthetic fodder. This distictions can be seen in Table 1. bellow.

Table 1. types of shrimp and ponds methods developed in Karimunjawa

No	Substance	Around 1990	Around 2017
1.	Type of shrimp	Tiger prawn and giant freshwater prawn	Vannamei shrimp
2.	Pond system	Traditional –partly intensive	Intensive
3.	Land preparation	Human workers	Excavator

Source: primary data taken with interview and observation

Vannamei shrimp (Lithopenaeus vannamei) came from South America. The best qualities of this shrimp are 1) responsive to low protein fodder, 25%-30% lower than giant freshwater prawn; 2)high adaptability of low temprature environment; 3) good adaptability of salinity change; 4) relatively fast growth rate at first and second month; 5) high survival rate; 6) these prawns fill dense ponds because they life not only in the bottom of the ponds but also in the surface; 7) vast market for 10-25 gram per shrimp.

Image 2. The image of the use of excavator for land clearing in SPTN II Kemujan area. This became an issue, whether this was right to call this business a small fish cultivation and issued only a Records of Fish Breeding Business (RFBB). Was not this supposed to be called big fish cultivation and issued a Fishery Business Licence (FBL)? (Source: COKNP’s document).

The dimensions of each rectangle pondwere 70 meters x 50 meters with 1-1,5-meter depth.Bottom of the ponds were covered by plastics joined together by heating them so they won’t leak. This was to separate water and base soil. 4 until 6 or even 8 waterwheelsput inside the ponds and kept working splashing ponds water. The other characteristics were the fodder making. It started with culturing natural fodder for baby vannamei shrimp inside the ponds, when the shrimps reached 60 days old, they fed on synthetic fodder. That was the description of a reborn of shrimp ponds cultivation in Karimunjawa.

The Similarity of Shrimp Pond Management

As a subsistent community, Karimunjawa people, in first and second periods of shrimp pond, were used as labours and ponds owner only. This business gave more benefit to the investor than to local people. The velocity of money showed imbalance. The local communities worked only for preparing the ponds, such as flattening the bottom of the ponds, cleaning up embankment, sticking membrane plastics for covering pond bottom soil, spreading calcium to decrease acidity around ponds. The payment for labours was very small, it did not reach minimum wage of Jepara region. The workers stopped working as ponds finished.

After finished preparing the ponds, there were another step to be done, like water filling, setting up waterwheel, operating water pump, and setting up other ponds equipment. These were all done by professional workers. The last stepsware making natural fodder for vannamei shrimp, water renewal regularly, water quality measurement regularly, and synthetic fodder feeding after shrimp reaching 60 days old. All of these steps were done by experts. The experts and professional workers were not local people. Even if locals worked as professional workers, they had to be trained and trusted person.

This indicated that local communities were still subsistent community that life depended on natural resources in Karimunjawa. They cannot survive and increase their income only by taking small part in this business. There was not a significant life changing on Karimunjawa local communities in both of shrimp ponds periods. Table 2 showed the detail position of local communities in shrimp ponds business in Karimunjawa.

Table 2. The similarity of local communities’ position in shrimp ponds business in Karimunjawa

No	Subject Matters	Around 1990	Around 2017
1.	Subject (Business Owner)	Outside Investor	Outside Investor
2.	Object (Labour)	Local Community	Local Community
3.	Land Owner	Local Community	Local Community
4.	Land Used System	Rent	Rent
5.	Labour	Local Community	Local Community
6.	Profit	Outside Investor	Outside Investor
7.	Waste Management	No Waste Management	No Waste Management

Source: Processed primary data taken by interviewing and observing

Assumptions

Based on the result of analysis above, there were some assumptions about a reborn of shrimp ponds business in Karimunjawa, as follows:

First. Shrimp ponds business was not an alternative income for Karimunjawa people. A business can be said as an alternative income of a community if only the community played an important role or the community made big profit for fulfilling their daily life. In contrast, local community in Karimunjawa undertook some of these:

1)    Mostly local people was only an owner of the land or the worker, meanwhile the investor came from outside of Karimunjawa (only took 1-2 natives of Karimunjawa). Mainly, locals had mangrove area that can be developed as ponds.

2)    Locals leased their land to the investors. The investors just had to pay Rp.6.000.000 per year for 70 m x 50 m land.

3)    Locals worked as labour. The payment for them, based on result of qualificationstudy analysis, was Rp.6.000.000 per cycle that involved 1 technician, 2 feeders, and 1 machine operator. First cycle cost, involving investment cost and cycle cost reached 1 billion. Comparing to the workers payment, the percentage was bellow 1%.

Second.  Shrimp pond business was not a frequent income for the majority of Karimunjawa people. The land owned by locals was for rent, that was the key. The rent duration was only for 4 years. It was estimated that the investors will leave Karimunjawa at the fourth year because the investor will not get maximal advantages from this business since land function have decreased. If we look closely to the analysis of vannamei shrimp cultivation on the online blog, the money used for running first phase directly came back after this phase finished. The investors in the second and next phase were only waiting for the profit. Break Even Point (BEP), Benefit Cost Rasio (BCR), and Internal Rate Return (IRR) did not have to be considered anymore.

Third. Shrimp pond business was not environmentally friendly. The fact is shrimp ponds in Karimunjawa does not have proper waste water management. When the harvest coming, pond water directly thrown away. The suitable environment-friendly shrimp pond was equipped with 4 pools, they were physic pool, chemical pool, biology pool, and specimen pool. The distinction of those pools as follows:

1    Physic pool separatedsolid waste, water waste, and gas, for instance sand, mud, or fodder remain.

2    The use of chemical poll was to sort out waste from physic pool by using chemical substance.

3    The use of Biology pool was to neutralize water came from chemical pool by using probiotics, like Bacillus.

4    As the last step of managing environment-friendly pool, specimen pool was used to control the waste water before it flowed away to the sea. This pool filled with milkfish to create neutral pond environmet.

Fourth. Shrimp pond business was not support local community. Article 12 (a), 13, and 21 in Regulation of Minister of Marine and Fishery Number 49/2014 Consideration of Fish Cultivation Business ruled small fish cultivation. One of the requirement of fish cultivation was the investor had to have RFBB (Records of Fish Breeding Business). In order to have RFBB, the investor had to submit his Resident Identity Card and stamped statement letter that stated area used for pond and kinds of cultivated fish. The area used for ponds cultivation was no more than 5 hectares. That meant cultivator of small fish were not usually local community. The fact was the land tenant did not come from local community of Karimunjawa based on their Resident Identity Card. How can be this condition called small fish cultivation? How can the cultivator of small fish expand their business outside of their homeland? Was it possible administration rule being violated here? Only investor, land owner, and God know.

Fifth. The result of shrimp pond business was not the only commodity that fulfilling the daily necessity in Karimunjawa. Target market for this business was no longer local markets in Karimunjawa. Most local people and tourist would rather consume fresh fish than shrimp. So, the highest demand and the biggest market of shrimp came from other cities in Java.

Consensus

Investment activities created regional development to increase community welfare. Investment generated social economy, especially in Karimunjawa. After the failure of tiger shrimp ponds before 2000, Karimunjawa people moved their economic activities to tourism. This activity encouraged great support of sustainable environmental development. Itsupported manual fishing method, but fishermen in Karimunjawa also fished outside Karimunjawa.

Will vannamei shrimp ponds experience the same failure astiger shrimp ponds before? If we looked back to the fifth parameter above, theoretically the failure will happen sooner or letter. If there was not consensus or general agreement among stakeholders, this failure will happen. The agreement must reach villages, Karimunjawa subdistric, Jepara regency, and Central Java province.

First. Local communities can be encouraged to be an investor. The key was locals who own ponds and who were skilful managed the shrimp ponds. How to make locals as investors, skilful workers, and experts? So, they won’t be ponds labourer. The requirements were:

1)    Government institution worked with fishery elucidatorsto guide locals in maintaining vannamei shrimp ponds business. Why? Fishery elucidators had strategic role. They assisted the land owner about technical strategy and guided locals who wanted to be skilled workers and experts. The fishery elucidator can persuade locals to preserve sustainability of natural resources. They also can expand locals’ knowledge on distribution of shrimp. Even, there might be great opportunity for the elucidators to directly introduce local investors with buyers, so that it shortened the process of shrimp distribution.

2)    Local government can help with directing banks to give investment capital with low interest rates to local investors. This capital followed with government financial support on fishery cultivation sectors.

Second. All the land owners can work together in one business groupas a business strategy to get fund. By working in a group, locals got large ponds area, this area can be a good guarantee to get money from bank. This valuable asset was the requirement that must be fulfilled by investor to get money from bank.

The unreliable relationship between members of the group or rules breaking might be a risk of this cooperation. In this case, the group needed neutral party who can be guider for the group. The neutral party can be an elucidator or the target invested company. The crops will be distributed to Java Island. This means, the neutral party can also be priority buyer with normal price.

Third. Equality in issuing RFBB. Regulation of Minister of Marine and Fishery Number 49/2014 do not require local communities (Karimunjawa people) as a RFBB holder. RFBB will be issued for everyone who has fulfil the requirements of small fish cultivation, such as land. The investors did not have to own the land for shrimp ponds, they can rent it which located in the shrimp ponds area. The locals did not have to own land, but the institution which authorized RFBB had to put first local communities in Karimunjawa. And if the locals can work well in the business group so they succeeded in making money, so the priority of issuing RFBB can be given to locals.

Fourth. The monitoring of shrimp pondswaste water quality. Waste water management systemhad to be managed well. Shrimp ponds waste water can affectcoral reefs inKarimunjawa National Park waters. This waste if it went directly to the waters caused blooming algae. It was dangerous because it caused an anoxic condition by the decreased of dissolved oxygen.Community Assistance program from Karimunjawa National Park Office can be applied by collaborating with environmental department to support installation of waste management. Waste management can be installed by investors.

With this consensus above, a reborn of shrimp ponds in Karimunjawa was not only for a short time business, but it can be long-established business that support sustainability of natural resources in Karimunjawa National Park. The existence of shrimp pods in Karimunjawa National Park area can work well and even be a new tourism object.

Karimunjawa National Park OfficeAncipation

As the only management of Karimunjawa National Park, the Office started to anticipate vannamei shrimp ponds businessnot only if the ponds succeeded (the hope of getting interest and economic development) but also if the ponds failed (shrimp ponds were susceptible to virus) because it was no longer providing great profit.

The success of shrimp ponds business was not only seen from good shrimp ponds management but also determined from crop sustainability. Shrimp ponds working continually affectedwaters in Karimunjawa. This shrimp ponds produced waste such as solid, liquid, and gas as the remains of fodder mixed in the water. We hope Karimunjawa did not have to experience the previous floating cages net that operated all the time.

Karimunjawa National Park Office should have done some preventions, as follows:

1)    Making permanent plots for measuring physic and chemical waters quality in directly affected location of water drainage during water circulation maintenance and crop;

2)    Taking data of physic and chemical quality periodically in permanent plots;

3)    Equipping the SPTN I Kemujan and SPTN II Karimunjawa with portable tools for measuring physic and chemical quality, namely DO meter (content of oxygen in the waters), pH meter (content of water acidity), Thermometer (temperature), Clinometer (salinity), secchi disk (clear water);

4)    Doing water sampling on permanent plots to be analysed in laboratory. For reducing sample analysis, Karimunjawa National Park Office can make a partnership with Department of Environment and Forestry Jepara Regency and Central Java who had laboratory (environmental surveillance was its task);

5)    Doing coordination and consultation with Environment and Forestry Department of Jepara and Central Java to discuss the result of shrimp ponds monitoring and waters sample analysis that frequently taken from permanent plots;

6)    It was important to work together with all stakeholders to support the installation of waste water management before it was flowed down the sea as discussed above. This consisted of 4 ponds, they were physic pool, chemical pool, biology pool, and specimen pool;

7)    If the ponds were abandoned/left by its investors because they no longer gave financial profit, restoration must be done together with other stakeholders. This prevented any bad effects, besides the land can be used for another reborn of shrimp ponds.

Image 3. Maps of land degradation outside KNPO. Some spots were land degradation caused by mangrove area employment outside KNPO for shrimp ponds. surveillance area SPTN II Karimunjawa (KNPO document).

Image 4. Maps of land degradation outside KNPO. Some spots were land degradation caused by mangrove area employment outside KNPO for shrimp ponds. surveillance area SPTN I Kemujan (KNPO document).

Reference:

http://www.agrotaninusantara.com/2014/11/apa-itu-udang-vaname.html. 

Peraturan Menteri Kelautan dan Perikanan Nomor 49/Permen-KP/2014 tentang Usaha Pembudidayaan Ikan