Case 2-14 Resolving conflicts between fishermen using innovative technology: case of Fase Boye

The boats of the bottom gillnet fishermen of Mboro depart from the port in the evening for fishing grounds, where the boats anchor cast nets to the seabed with anchor ropes and attach buoy ropes to the ends of the nets to mark the location of their gear. The boats leave the fishing grounds and return to the port. The next morning, the boats would depart from the port again, and the nets would be lifted and harvested in the early morning.

Therefore, at night the bottom gillnet gear is unmanned in the sea. On the other hand, drift-net fishing gear is carried by the tide along with the boats throughout the night. If the net gear gets caught in the buoy rope of the bottom gill net, the drift net fishermen cut the buoy rope so that the drift net gear is not entangled. This causes the bottom gillnet gear with the buoy rope severed to be swept away. Most conflicts between drift net fishermen and bottom gillnet fishermen arise from this situation.

CLPA Fas Boye solved this problem by using an innovative technology: the GPS function in the fishermen’s mobile phones. Many of the bottom gillnet fishermen in Umboro now have GPS capabilities in their mobile phones, which they use to locate their position at sea where they have set up their bottom gillnet fishing gear. Accordingly, they extend the length of anchor ropes longer than before and stop using buoy ropes, which cause conflicts. The next morning, the fishermen set out for the fishing grounds, use the GPS function to locate the bottom gillnet gear, and when they arrive at the fishing grounds, the anchor ropes are deployed from the boat and towed. The towing anchor hooks the anchor rope that has been extended from the net gear that was deployed the previous day, finds the bottom gill net gear, and begins to lift the net.

This method avoids entanglement of drift and bottom gillnet gear at night and eliminates conflicts between the two fishing parties.

It is critical to clarify the cause of any fisheries dispute. There are often several means of removing the identified cause. In this case study, the conflict is between drift net fishermen and bottom gillnet fishermen.

As explained in the case of the inclusion of migrant fishermen in Lompoul, conflicts often occur between the migrant drift-net fishermen and the local bottom gillnet fishermen. In the Lompoul case above, fishermen leaders succeeded in avoiding the conflict by discussing with the CLPA of the migrant fishermen’s hometown and obtaining their agreement to ban the nighttime operation of driftnet fishing. 

In this case, however, the fishermen succeeded in preventing a conflict by removing the cause of the conflict through the application of an innovative technology, which is the GPS function of mobile phones.

Chapter 2 Establishing and strengthening the resource management implementation system

2.4 Involvement of migrant fishermen

If the activities of migrant fishermen from outside a region are a disincentive to managing fisheries resources in the local waters, what specific actions can be taken to prevent conflicts between local and migrant fishermen and advance the envisioned fisheries resource management activities?

When there is a problem causing a conflict among fishermen in a target area and fishery resource management activities are initiated to solve the problem, the cause of the problem should be identified and shared among the stakeholders. For example, if the conflict is between migrant fishermen and local fishermen, and its cause is the entanglement of fishing gear in the fishing grounds, a solution is to have the parties agree on fishing adjustments, or, as explained in this case, to avoid entanglement of gear in the fishing grounds through innovative technology. Thus, when considering how to solve a problem, it is necessary to first identify the nature of the problem and then try to examine the solution from various perspectives.