January 31, 2017
In an effort to help increase fishermen income, RER recently provide fishing equipments in the form of 360 kg fishnet and six balls of yarn to Serkap Jaya Lestari fishing group.
The group was formed in October 2016 and signed a Collaborative Agreement with RER that includes 21 families who depends on the fish catches from Serkap River, Teluk Meranti sub-district, Pelalawan District, Riau Province.
“Every fishermen requires about 12 kg fishnet to make decent catching. Most of the fishermen here owns only 3kg. We’ll distribute this new fishnet to the other members,” said Bahtiar, chief of the Serkap fishermen group.
The assistance is part of RER’s effort in preserving the local customs of utilizing Serkap river as a source of livelihood and promoting sustainable fishing method to replace to use poison and electrofishing.
The group wil also report its catch to the RER team, to enable monitoring of available seasonal fish and prevent over-fishing activities.
In 2016, 24 fishermen reported their monthly catch, which totaled more than 2,500 kg of fresh and dried fish. The highest fish catch was reported during the wet season in November, when the water level rises.
Based on the preliminary fish surveys conducted by RER’s partner, Fauna & Flora International (FFI) on rivers at Kampar Peninsula, including Serkap River, the waters has about 30 fish species with some likely to fall under protected category (Sukmono,2016).
Restorasi Ekosistem Riau (RER) manages about 130.000 ha of ecologically important peat forest at Kampar peninsula by way of: Protecting, Assessing, Restoring and Managing the restoration area at a landscape-level.
