Yustus Menarbu shares his last name with the small coastal community that’s been his home for 37 years. Living on one of the smaller islands in Indonesia’s West Papua Province, he is part of the Roon Indigenous community. And like the rest of his village of 238 people, Yustus and his large family depend on the sea for their food and income.
“I am proud to be a fisherman,” he says. He and his wife fish for red snapper with hand lines, a method that has minimal impact on the environment.
Since 2017, Yustus and his community have been implementing Sasi, a traditional fishery co-management system in Indonesia. It’s a set of rules mutually agreed upon by Indigenous peoples, religious leaders and the government for managing natural resources in their area.
They include biological rest periods to give the fish a chance to reproduce. They also urge fishers to use environmentally friendly gear that only catches the target species, and only when they have reached maturity.
As part of Sasi, Yustus and his fellow fishermen monitor fish stocks around their village. He says they have noticed more diverse species appearing in recent years, and even in the waters under their houses, which are on stilts.
“When we dive in front of our village pier, we can see lots of ornamental fish and coral fish around the reefs,” he says. But also dugongs, turtles and sharks.
This increase in biodiversity has benefited the red snapper, according to Yustus, and his average catch has increased as a result.
As chair of his village-owned enterprise (locally known as BUMKA), Yustus is responsible for selling the villagers’ catch in the big fish markets in their regency and province.
He also promotes Menarbu’s sustainably caught seafood through social media.
Yustus has increased his fishing and marketing skills thanks to the Coastal Fisheries Initiative, which offers skill and business training to traditional fishing communities. Most importantly, he says, it has led to “a change in people’s mindsets” about preservation.
“Almost all the people of this village now understand that the benefits of Sasi are very important for them, for the natural ecosystem and for future generations.”
Like the rest of his community, Yustus and his wife are educating their nine children to uphold conservation values.
“They grew up in an environment that taught them a lot about kindness, patience and sincerity in protecting nature,” he says. “The things we do may seem very small to us, but they have a huge impact on nature and other people.”
The Coastal Fisheries Initiative is implemented in Indonesia by the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF) in partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
