Development Problems of an Open-Access Resource: The Fisheries of Peninsular Malaysia 9789814376723

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Occasional Paper No. 86

Development Problems of an Open-Access Resource The Fisheries of Peninsular Malaysia

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies was established as an autonomous organization in May 1968. It is a regional research centre for scholars and other specialists concerned with modem Southeast Asia, particularly the manyfaceted problems of stability and security, economic development, and political and social change. The Institute is governed by a twenty-two-member Board of Trustees comprising nominees from the Singapore Government, the National University of Singapore, the various Chambers of Commerce , and professional and civic organizations. A ten-man Executive Committee oversees day-to-day operations; it is chaired by the Director, the Institute's chief academic and administrative officer. The ASEAN Economic Research Unit is an integral part of the Institute. coming under the overall supervi sion of the Director who is also the Chairman of its Management Committee. The Unit was fom1ed in 1979 in response to the need to deepen understanding of economic change and political developments in ASEAN . The day-to-day operations of the Unit are the responsibility of the Co-ordinator. A Regional Advi sory Committee. consisting of a senior economi st from each of the ASEAN countries, guides the work of the Unit.

Dev elop nten t Prob lent s of an Ope n-A cces s Res ourc e · The Fisher ies of Penin sular Malay sia

Ooi Jin Bee National University of Singapore

ASEAN ECONOMIC RESEARCH UNIT

INSTIT UTE OF SOUTH EAST ASIAN STUDIES

Cataloguing in Publication Data Ooi . Jin -bee. 1931Development problem s of an open-access reso urce: the fi sheriL'S of Penin -. ular Mal ays ia . (Occasional paper I Institute of Sou theast Asian Studies: no . Xo) I. Fi sheries--Malays ia. I. In stitute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore J II. Title . Ill. Series. DS50 I 159 no . R6 1990 sls89-l I050.:1 ISBN 981-3035-46-3 ISSN 0073-973 I

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© 1990 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies The responsibility for facts and opinions expressed in this publication rests exclusively with the author and his interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the Institute or its supporters. Printed and bound in Singapore by Kin Keong Printing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Contents

List of Tables Li st of Figures Acknow ledgeme nts Fi sheries of Peninsular Malaysia Historical Backgro und Impact of Technol ogy The Trawl Sector Dichotom ization of the Inshore Fisheries Depletio n of the Resourc e Base II

Overfish ing Theoreti cal Aspects Biologic al and Econom ic Overfish ing Overfish ing in Peninsul ar Malaysi a

vi vii viii

4 5 11

14 22 22 23 27

ill Regulati on of Fishing Effort in Peninsul ar Malaysia

37

IV Problem s of Fish Resourc e Managem ent

45

Biologic al and Environm ental Factors Socio-E conomic Factors Institutio nal Factors

v

Discussi on

Referenc es The Author

47 48 48

53 57 63

List of Tables

1. Restrictions on Areas of Fishing (Fishing Zones) in Peninsular Malaysia 2. Trawler Licences Issued, Peninsular Malaysia, 1965-72 3. Number of Licensed Fishing Boats by Gear Group, Type, and Tonnage Class, 1986 4. Potential Yields of Fish Resources, Peninsular Malaysia 5. Potential Yields, Maximum Sustainable Yields (MSYs) and Average Catches, Peninsular Malaysia, 1981-86 6. Fish Trawling Licence Fees and Deposits

9 10 13 17 35 43

List of Figures

I. Movements of Fresh Marine Fish in Malaya, 1923 2. Mechanization of the Fishing Fleet, Peninsular Malaysia, 1946-86 3. Marine Fish Landings, Peninsular Malaysia, 1961-86 4. The Main Fishing Grounds of Peninsular Malaysia 5. Trade in Fishery Commodities, Peninsular Malaysia, 1967-86 6. Fish and Foreign Exchange Earnings 7. Sustainable Yield Curve 8. Revenue and Costs in an Open-Access Fishery 9. Level of Fishing Intensity for Coastal Pelagic Fish, Peninsular Malaysia I 0. Level of Fishing Intensity for Demersal Fish and Crustaceans II. Production per Unit Effort in Peninsular Malaysia, 1965-86 12. Trash Fish as a Percentage of Total Fish Landings, 1972-86 13. The Estimated Maximum Sustainable Yields/Maximum Potential Yields for the West and East Coasts of Peninsular Malaysia, According to Various Authorities, Compared with the Highest Annual Catch Taken from Each Coast and the Average Catch, 1981-86 14. Number and Types of Licensed Fishing Boats, 1964-86 15. The Territorial Seas and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Peninsular Malaysia

3 6 12 15 19 20 24 26 30 31 32 33

34 41 51

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Dato ' Shahrom bin Haji Abdul Majid, Director-General, Department of Fisheries, Malaysia, for courtesies extended to me when I was in Kuala Lumpur. I have benefited greatly from my discussions with Inche Mohd. Mazlan Jusoh, Deputy Director-General, Department of Fisheries on the problems of fisheries development in Peninsular Malaysia. However, all errors, omissions, and views expressed in this publication remain my responsibility .

I

Fisheries of Peninsular Malaysia

Historical Background The geographic characteristics of the Peninsular Malaysia- a long and narrow peninsula with a 1,900-km coastline- give support to the belief that fishing in the inshore waters is as old as settlement in the coastal lowlands of the country. These coastal villages , self-sufficient in food and other necessities, were beginning to engage in some trade as early as the last century sc (Ryan 1962). Dried and salted fish were among the traditional items of trade and by the fifteenth century there was an extensive trade in them throughout the Malay archipelago. Malacca ' s main domestic product at the end of that century was fish (MeilinkRoelofsz 1962). With the establishment of British rule and the growth of urban centres in the Malay Peninsula, the demand for fish increased considerably. This in tum attracted fishermen from among the immigrant communities, mainly Chinese and, to a lesser extent, Indians, who in contrast to the Malays took to fishing as a full-time commercial occupation. Entry to the fisheries was unrestricted and required only the payment of a small annual licence fee for nets and fishing stakes. By the second half of the nineteenth century these commercial fishermen had built up a thriving fishing industry along the west coast of the peninsula and the east coast of Johore, serving the markets of Western Malaya (now Peninsular Malaysia) and Singapore. In the 1890s, for example, Penang and Province Wellesley had a multiracial group of fishermen; north Perak, some 1,100 fishermen of whom 90 per cent were Chinese; and Kuala Selangor, over 500 fishermen, mainly Chinese (Dew 1891; Maxwell 1921). The fishing industry expanded in the early twentieth century as the establishment of a modem road and rail transportation network: and the availability of ice allowed for the long-distance haulage of fresh fish to the main towns. By 1920 the annual movement of fresh fish by rail to the urban areas of the Federated Malay States had reached 7,000 tons. In addition, substantial quantities of dried fish were shipped from the East Coast states to the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States (Winstedt 1923). In a pioneer survey of the fishing industry, Stead ( 1923) identified the main fishing villages of Malaya and the towns to which they supplied fresh and dried 1

]

DEVELOP ~ ENT PROBLE .\ IS OF A:-.: OPEi\-A CCE'iS RE ~O LR CE

fi sh. The pattern of these move ment s is sho wn in Figure I . T he conce ntrati on of market s on the western littoral is ev ident. givi ng ri se in tum to the concentration of fi shing effort in the inshore waters of the Malacca Straits. The South China Sea. in contrast. was minimally exploited as di stance from markets and dependence on slow sea transport meant that the bulk of the fi sh that entered the internal trade system was the lower value and less demanded dried and salted fi sh. The fisherie s at thi s peri od could best be described as small-sca le or artisanal. There was an almost complete lack of exac t knowledg e of the occ urrence. di stribution. rate of growth. and spaw nin g time of the food-fishes (S tead 1923 ). The fi shing techniques and eq uipment used were developed and handed down from one generation to the next. The small fishing boats were ei ther rowed or sailed, putting a geographi c limit to the fi shing grounds they could reach. The fishing range of 40-56 km was set by the strength and regularity of the land and sea breezes. and by the fact that most Malay fi shermen did not like to fi sh overnight (Firth 1946; Parry 1954; Ward 1964 ). The Malay fi shing population was made up of full-time fi shermen as well as many who combined fi shing with farming. Part of the dail y catches went for home consumption. As is characteristic of an artisanal fishery , the Malay fishing industry was only partially oriented to a market economy . As was pointed out by Stead ( 1923). such fishing while well able to meet the needs of the local villages was highly ineffective in sati sfy ing the demand of a rapidly growing urban populatio n. This growing demand served to attract an increasing number of market-or iented Chinese and, to a lesser extent. Indians to the indu stry . Nearly all of them were located in fi shing villages along the West Coast, exploiting the rich fi sh and prawn resources of the Straits of Malacca, and sending their catches to the urban centres of the tin and rubber belt of the western littoral and to Singapore. By the late 1940s the Chinese and Indian fishermen comprise d more than 20 per cent of the estimated total fishing populatio n of 50,000. The total annual catch of Malaya was between 80,000 and 100,000 tons. The average annual output per head was only 2 tons. The output of the Malay fishermen on the East Coast was even lower- 1.5 tons per head- while that of the Chinese ring-net fi shermen of Pangkor island was I 0 tons (Firth 1946). The influx of fishermen into the West Coast fisheries, while significan t in numbers, did not lead to any discernible fall in catch rates. There were reports of scarcities of fish and prawns as early as the 1890s due to the excessive entry of fishermen into local fisheries, but these scarcities appeared not to have persisted (Dew 1891 ). Along the Perak coast, the governme nt imposed restrictions on the use of a type of fishing stake - the ambai - in the early 1920s because of overcrow ding and overfi shing in the inshore areas. Overcrow ding in the inshore waters of Malacca was also a problem in the late 1920s (Yap 1976). These reports of overcrow ding concerned only one type of fi shing gear- the fishing stake- and its use along the inshore waters of Perak and Malacca. The

FIGURE I ) '-,

' I

\)

"'] _

P. Langkawi ~

OF FRESH MARrNE FISH IN MALAYA. 1923

MOVE~IE'\T S

--- ---- - - - -t~ i"-· ~. \J - J ......... " " '

- - --- ----- - - - - - - - - -- -- --

- - - ---

--

- - -- -- - - - - ,

N

\

;.....·'\...,

o[}

:,

ALOR STAR

.....-"".

)

{

~·. . .

\ '·

• PATANI / \.· • BUTTERWORTH

) ·""'

""'

)

I

1

-~

)

'-1

I --'

r

I

~J

J r

SOUTH

CHINA

SEA

'[J SUMATRA

(INDONESIA)

® TOWN (Market I Distribution Centre )

0

50

100

150km

SouRCEs: Stead 1923; Ward 1964.

4

DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS OF AN OPEN-ACCESS RESOU RCE

fishery as a whole could not be said to have been overexploited. As Firth ( 1946) has stated. "there is no reason to believe that the Malayan waters were being overfished before the [Second World] war". The war years. which disrupted the fishing industry , nevertheless had a beneficial effect on the fish stock. allowing it to recover from such local overexploitation as had existed. Recovery of the industTy in the post-war years was rapid up to 1950 when the total catch was 78.800 tons, but slowed down in 1951 and 1952 because of poor fishing seasons and restrictions brought about by the Emergency . 1 The slowdown was. however. only temporary and by 1954 the annual catch of 107.000 tons was more than double that of 1947 .~

Impact of Technology The technology of the artisanal fisheries of Malaysia has evolved over a long period of time. Gear and boat types are the product of an intimate relationship between the fishing communities and the resource on which they depend. There is great ingenuity in the use of local materials such as bamboo, nibong (Oncosperma tigillaria), and wood in the construction of boats and equipment to capture the different varieties of fish under varying physiographic and environmental conditions. A wide range of fishing methods is employed, with each using in tum a wide variety of equipment. Tham ( 1949) has classified them into (I) moving nets (haul, cast. thrust, encircling, drift); (2) stationary nets (gill, barrier, lift); (3) lines (baited, non-baited); (4) traps (simple, complex); and (5) miscellaneous (for example, harpoons, spears). Although there are regional variations in. for example, the size of boats used by the artisanal fishermen, most have a number of common characteri stics. The great majority are sailing boats designed to operate in the shallow inshore waters of the peninsula:' As they are usually beached between fishing trips. they are of shallow draught and keelless. Most are not fitted with rudders and are not decked. ln general, boats used in the rougher seas of the East Coast are more robust than those of the West Coast (Gibson-Hill 1949). Up to the beginning of the Pacific War, the only major technological development that had an impact on the arti sanal fi sheries was the introduction of the purse seine. This gear was introduced by Chinese fishermen from South China who had settled in Thailand and later migrated to Kedah and then to Pangkor on the Perak coast. The purse seine, a very large net, was an efficient method of capturing pelagic species, especially the mackerel known as kembong (Scomber sp .). A combination of factors- the enlargement of the market for fish, official interest in promotjng the use of the purse seine, the greater availability of ice, and the mechanization of the fishing craft - worked to eAcourage an increasing number of fishermen (large Iy Chinese) to purse seining, to such an extent that by the 1950s and early 1960s it had become the most important fishing gear in the country (Gibson-Hill 1949; Yap 1976).

FISHERIES OF PENINSULAR MALAYSIA

5

The second technological development that had a significant impact on fishing and catch rates was the mechanization of the fishing fleet. Up to the beginning of the War the only fishermen who used motorized craft were the Chinese kemhnng fishermen ofPangkor (Firth 1946). Progress in mechanization after the War was slow, and it was not untill959 that one-third of the boats were fitted with engines, at first mainly with outboard motors and later with the more reliable and efficient inboard diesel engines. By 1986 all but 4 per cent of the licensed boats were powered, though 30 per cent of them were small craft fitted with outboard motors (Figure 2). Mechanization not only reduces the fishing boats ' vulnerability to weather conditions (a real problem for the East Coast fi . hermen during the northeast monsoon), but also increases their fishing range, from the previous maximum of 56 krn to 120 k:m or more. Paralleling this technological advance was the development of an extensive road-and-rail transport network linking the main urban centres of the peninsula. along which fresh fish could be se nt rapidly (see Ooi 1976 ). Ashore and at sea the greater availability of ice and refrigerated storage allowed for an increasing percentage of the catch to reach the consumer as higher-priced fresh fish, to the economic benefit of the fishem1en. The number of ice factories. for example, increased from ten in I 947 to seventy-three in 1986. In addition there were 219 refrigerating establishments providing cold storage facilities in 1986. The other post-war technological development was the introduction and rapid adoption throughout the industry of fishing nets made from nylon and other synthetic materials instead of ramie and cotton fibres. These nets are stronger and required less repair and maintenance than the traditional nets. Catch rates consequently improved. For example, the drift-net catches in the Malacca Straits doubled in 1958 when synthetic fibre nets were used instead of cotton nets (Ward 1964 ). All nets are now made from synthetic materials. The Trawl Sel'for

The development that has had the greatest impact on the fisheries of Peninsular Malaysia was trawler fishing. In the late 1920s the colonial government undertook a survey on trawling in the waters off Singapore and the Straits of Malacca. The results indicated that the Straits oJ Malacca was not suitable for trawling because of the muddy and rocky bottom, the small catches in the deeper parts of the Straits, and the high percentage of small low-grade fishes in the shallow coastal waters (Green and Birtwistle 1927. 1928). Surveys were conducted in the early 1950s in both the Straits ofMalacca and the South China Sea. ln so far as the Straits was concerned the surveys contirmed the earlier findings - that the waters there were unsuitable for trawling. Trawling operations in the South China Sea indicated that otter rrawling beyond the 32-km limit would not be practicable as the accumulation of mud in the bag would cause a total loss of the nets. Another survey, undertaken in the mid-

FIGURE 2: MECHANIZATION OF THE FISHlNG FLEET, PENINSULAR MALAYSIA .

194~6

Total number of licenced fishing boats in 1986 = 22.476

£.

......

-~ ~

.£

c 60

TOTAL

"0 0>

Q) ::::

¥

Q)

-"0 C/)

(6

...... 0

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I' .!)o ......:J 0

I

.

0 Q)

0>

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~

~"0

//

........... c

/

~

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...... ...... ...._

..... c

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__ _ .........

·-

1946

1950

1955

1960

1965

/

..... ....

......

.......

1970

____

/

......

/

/

/

/

---

/

/

__ Loutboard

1975

1980

Years So u RCE: Annual repo n ~ o f the De panme nt of Fishe ri es . Mini stry o f Agri culture and Fi she ri es.

1986

FISHERI ES OF PENIN SULA R MALAYSIA

7

1950s. provided evidence that there were six areas near the coasts and islands off the East Coast of I he Pen insu Ia where high catch rates could be e xpected, but that the greater part of the South China Sea beyond the I 0-fathom (I R.3-metre) line was barre n and not worth e xploiting (Ommanney 1961 ). An early ( 1954- 55) attempt to trawl in the deeper waters of the South China Sea. 56 km and beyond off the East Coast was a commercial failure because of low market prices for the main catch - ikan merah (Lutjanidae) (Soong 1964). In the early 1960s the breakdown in lndonesian-Malaysian relations led to the cessation of the barte r trade between the two countries. Some of the more enterprising barter traders. looking for alternative employment and uses for their vessels (in the .'~0-50 - ton category). went to Thailand to learn the techniques of trawling from tlw fish e rmen in the Gulf of Thailand. They returned with two type s of trawl - the beam trawl and the otter trawl. The former. designed to operate only in shallow in shore waters. wa s eventually banned (in 1967) because its use would mean encroaching upon the traditional fi shing grounds of the artisanal fishermen . The otter trawl could be used in waters of varying depth . Comme rcial trawling began in Penang and Perak in March 1963. the fishennen employing converted barter-trade vessels and trawl nets introduced from Thailand . As indicated by Ommanney ( 196 L) and also based on Thai experience in the Gulf of Thailand. the greatest density of demersal fi sh was in the 10-15-fathom ( 18. 3- 27A-metre) zone. The trawlers achieved high catch rates by fi shing not in the deeper water . but in the I 0-15-fathom zone, that is. in the inshore waters that had been the tradi. JnaJ preserve of the artisanal fi shem1en. The success of trawling with the 30-50-to n vessels e ncouraged the owners of not only the bigger purse-se ine boab but also the small (up to 25-tonl driftnet boats to convert them into trawle r . The move into trawling was so rapid that by 1964 an estimated 900 unlicensed trawlers were believed to be operating in the in shore waters of northwest Peninsular Malay sia (Soong 1964 ). The largescale introduc tion of thi s new fi h.ing gear into their traditional fi shing grounds met with violent reactions from the artisanal fi shem1en who claimed that it was destroying their gear and their tish resources. The governmental response was to impose a te mporary ban on trawling. Ln an attempt to convince the fishem1enuf the dliL·ielh:y nf trawling anJ to maximi ze the exploitation of the fi sh re~oun:e ~ in !l.:.'rritorial anJ international waters. the government conducted a pilot pWJectnn llther trawling in the deeper (over 15-fathom) waters off Pulau Langkawi . u'ing fmt y- two boats leased to the llshem1en · ~ L'O-operative in Penang and Kuala Kedah . The project proved to be a success. pro mpting the govemmelll tll legaliL.e trawling in Kedah in 1405 and 111 Penang in IY66 (Soong 1964: Lam perative societies. Second.

8

DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS OF AN OPEN-ACCESS RESOURCE

only boats of more than 50 gross tons could be used. Third, the trawlers must operate at least 12 miles ( 19.3 km) from shore or in waters more than 15 fathoms (27 .4 metres) in depth, whichever was further. These regulations were passed by Parliament in 1967 and gazetted as the Fisheries (Maritime) Regulations, 1967 (see Table I). The intention of the regulations was to restrict trawling to waters where it would not conflict with inshore artisanal gears, and to tap the demersal fish resources which were considered to be underexploited as they were not accessible to the fi shing gears then in common use (Selvadurai and Lai 1977). It was al so hoped that by giving co-operative societies a monopoly over trawler licences and limiting the number of licences issued to each society, trawler activities could be controlled and fi sh resources conserved. As it turned out. inadequate enforcement capacity made it difficult to implement the trawling regulations, and many fi shermen continued to trawl illegally . Many also encroached on the prawn-rich shallow inshore fishing grounds of the artisanal fi shermen , destroying their fi shing gear (Gibbons 1976). Tension between the two groups of fi shermen - the trawl and the artisanal fi shermen - increased to the point of open conflict. A total of 113 clashes occurred between the two during the period 1964-76, involving over 400 trawlers and more than 900 inshore vessels. More than one hundred boats were sunk and destroyed and thirty-four fi shermen killed. Most of the clashes occurred along the Perak and Penang coasts (Goh 1976). In 1971 the government. recognizing that trawling was an efficient means of capturing prawn and demersal fish resources, and the practical difficulties of controlling the size of boats and the areas of fi shing. relaxed the restrictions on trawling and increased the number of licences available. The new regulations were embodied in the Fifth Schedule of the Fisheries (Maritime) (Amendment) Regulations. 1971 (see Table I). The easing of these regulations. especially on licensing. led to an increase in the number of trawling licences in Peninsular Malaysia- from 1,349 in 1970 to 3.973 in 1972 (or 294 percent)( see Table 2). The increase in the number of licensed trawlers was most marked in the case of the so-called mini-trawlers ( 10-ton and under) which took advantage of the new laws to trawl in the shallow inshore waters of the 3-7-mjJe (4.8-11.3-krn) fishing zone. In Perak there was a 32-fold jump in the number of trawlers - from fiftythree in 1970 to 1,713 in 1971. 93 per cent of these 1,713 licensed trawlers belonged to the mini-trawler class (Goh 1976). Most of the economic surplus generated by trawling had accrued to the new breed of innovative and entrepreneurial fishermen who provided the venture capital. For a variety of reasons- conservatism, non-familiarity with the fishlng techniques, lack of capital-only a mmority of the artjsanal fishermen had taken to trawling (Goh 1976; World Bank 1982). On the contrary, many had felt threatened by the new technology and had battled against the trawlers for what they regarded as an encroachment on their traditional fishlng grounds. In a

TABLE I: RESTRICTIONS ON AREAS OF FISHING (FISHING ZONES) IN PENINSULAR MALAYSIA Year

Legislation

Zones

1963

Fisheries Act, 1963

Trawlers are restricted to waters 12 miles ( 19.3 km) from shore and in waters of not less than 15 fathoms (27 .4 m) in depth.

1967

Fisheries (Maritime) Regulations, 1967, P.U. 49/ 1967 Fifth Schedule

Section 2( I) of the Schedule restri cts the use of otter trawl nets to three zones, the criteria be ing the tonnage and horsepower (hp) of the boats. The zones are: (a) Trawlers of less than 25 ton s gross tonnage with less than 60 hp shall be used in waters beyond 3 mil es (4.8 km) off the coast of any of the states of West Malaysia and off the islands of Pulau Langkawi , Pulau Bidan, Pulau Pinang. Pul au Pangkor, Pulau Ketam, Pulau Tioman, Pulau Redang, and Pulau Perhentian. Provided that in the waters off the coast of Kelantan, Trengganu, and Pahang, and off the eastern coast of Johor, fishing with trawl nets may be permitted within any di stance from the coast during the months of November to March, the period of the northeast monsoon. (b) Trawlers of 25 tons gross tonnage and above with 60 hp and above shall be used in waters beyond 7 miles ( 11.3 km). (c) Trawlers of 100 tons gross tonnage and above with 200 hp and above shall be used in waters beyond 12 miles (19.3 km).

198 1

Fisheries Licensing Policy, 198 1

(a) Fishing from the shoreline to 5 mil es (8 km ) offshore can only be carried out by fish ermen us ing their own traditional gears. Trawling and purse seining are banned in thi s zone but the use of the anchovy purse se ine and the pu/.:ar jerut hi/is (a net for catching anchovy) is pennitted. (b) This zone ex tends from 5 to 12 miles (8 to 19.3 km) from the shore. Trawling and purse seining by ow ner-ope rated boats under 40 gross registered tons are allowed in this zone and beyond. (c) This zone ex tends from 12 to 30 mil es ( 19.3 to 48 km) from the shore . Trawlers and purse seines over 40 gross regi stered ton s and other fishin g gears wholly owned and operated by Malaysians can fish within the zone. (d) This zone. which extends from 30 miles (48 km ) to the boundaries of the Malaysian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), is open to foreign vessels and those vessels operating on a joint-venture basis with Malaysia.

TABLE 2: TRAWLER LICENCES ISSUED, PENINSULAR MALAYSIA. 1965- 72 ~

1965

1966

1967

1968

1969 - --

1971

197'2

2.594 892

2.~40

·----·

West Coast East Coast

27 398

180

-

-

264 64

367 367

599 750

Total

20

425

180

328

734

1349

20

-----

1970

--

3.486 --

---

1, 127

-

J.lJ?J

SOURCE: Department of Fisheries, Annual Fisheries Statistics, 1965-72 (Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries) .

FI SHERIES OF PE:o-:INSL"L\R MALAYSIA

II

iurther effort to protect the arti sanal fi shermen. the government enacted a new fi shing policy in 198 1 which banned trawling in the zone between the shoreline and 5 miles t8 km ) offshore (see Table 1). The introduction and spread of trawling throughout the peninsula has greatly increased fish catches in the decades 1960-RO (Figure 3). Indeed. in the first six years ( 1965-71) of its introduction, fi sheries production grew at an average annual growth rate of 7 per cent per annum compared with the average annual rate of6 percent for the country 's GNP. During this period trawling was also the main factor contributing to a 5.8 per cent average annual increase in labour productivity in fisheries in terms of tons per fisherman , although the growing proportion of trash fish landed reduced the productivity increase to 4.3 per cent per annum in terms of value (Labon 1974 ). Today about 50 per cent of the total fish catches in Peninsula Malaysia is from trawling (Department of Fisheries, Annual Fisheries Statistics. 1986). Dichotomization of the Inshore Fisheries The modernization process discussed above was not an even one, but was confined to a subsector of the fishing industry, leaving the traditional sector relatively untouched. This has resulted in a dichotomization of the industry. On the one side is the artisanal fishery characterized by a lack of organization and the use of a large number and variety of fishing equipment and techniques. All of the non-powered, outboard-powered and four-fifths of the small inboard-powered boats are in this section (Table 3). Most of the artisanal fishermen are Malays, and most (56 per cent in 1986) of the 34,000 Malay fishermen are in the fishing villages of the East Coast. Fishing is on a small scale and usually confmed to the shallow inshore waters up to 7 miles ( 11.3 km) from the coastline. Fishing trips are therefore of less than a day 's duration. The fishermen on the East Coast exploit the pelagic resources in the main, but on the West Coast exploit both the pelagic and demersal resources as well as the prawn resources. The main changes that have taken place in this sector of the industry in recent years are the adoption of synthetic materials for fishing nets and the gradual mechanization of the fishing boats, the latter releasing them from their dependence on sail and wind. Productivity remains low, and in 1986 only 35 per cent of the total fish landing were from this sector, although they accounted for half of the total retail value of fish and prawns. The modern sector, on the other side, is characterized by the use of capitalintensive production technology to capture mainly demersal, prawn, and the deeper offshore fish resources. The scale of operations is also a differentiating factor in that this sector has four-fifths of the large (40-ton and above) and medium-sized (15-40-ton) vessels (Table 3). The Malaysian Government differentiates the modern large-scale sector from the small-scale artisanal sector on the basis of gear technology- vessels using trawl nets and purse seines are

FIGURE 3: MARINE FISH LANDINGS, PENINSULAR MALAYSIA, I96I-86

000 Tonnes 650 600 550 500

450 400 (/)

C)

z z

C5 350