Dilema Pelarangan Cantrang: Konflik Masyarakat Nelayan di Kabupaten Rembang, 1996-2015

Abstract

The article aims to reveal the various conflicts that plague fishing communities in Rembang Regency due to the use of fishing gear, the government's efforts to resolve conflicts, and the fishing community's rejection of government policies related to fishing gear. Policies launched by the government to mitigate conflict, instead of resolving it, often lead to dilemmas and cause new problems due to overlapping points of rules. By using historical methods, this study highlights the use of fishing gear, especially cantrang in Rembang Regency, which in its development has resulted in controversy due to the damage it causes to marine life. In 1980, the Indonesian government officially banned trawl operations through Presidential Decree (Keppres) No. 39 of 1980. However, this regulation actually resulted in the emergence of various modifications of fishing gear that were actually trawl types. The fishing gear includes cantrang, arad, cothok, dogol, payang, and lampara. Even though the government has made efforts to regulate the use of fishing gear, conflicts still often occur between fishermen with modern fishing gear and small fishermen with simple fishing gear. The results of the study show that the conflict arose due to one of the reasons for the violation of the size of the machine by cantrang fishermen. The size of the machine that exceeds the provisions and the use of cantrang has dredged marine life down to the smallest. As a consequence, the income of small fishermen decreases because they find it difficult to find fish in the catchment area. Especially, they couldn't sail to more distant waters. Based on this situation, coupled with the possibility of damage to the marine ecosystem due to the use of cantrang, the government finally banned the use of cantrang in all Indonesian waters strictly through Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministerial Regulation (Permen) No. 2 of 2015.

Keywords: Fishermen Conflict; Fishing Gear; trawls; cantrang; Gear Modification.