Does cantrang trawl fishing become more efficient after the partial trawl ban? a case study of technical efficiency of cantrang fishery in the Java Sea – Indonesia

¹ Center for Fisheries Research – Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Indonesia
² Center for Socio-Economics Research - Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: kamaluddin.kasim@gmail.com

Abstract

Cantrang- a modified Danish seine that targets demersal fish and squid in the Java Sea- has been banned partially in all Indonesian waters since 2015. The policy goal was to limit the ecological impact by reducing the number of the fleet. This study compares the technical efficiency (T.E.) of cantrang fishing before and after the ban and identifies input technology that affects fleet efficiency. A Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used to calculate the Technical Efficiency of the cantrang. In this case, the T.E. measures the ability of cantrang to maximize catch using a given set of production inputs such as Goss Tonnage (G.T.), fishing duration, and the number of skippers using the time series daily landing data from 2007 to 2017. The results show pure and scale efficiency of the fleet increases considerably during the after-ban period compared to the before-ban period. This relatively high technical efficiency at post-ban occurred due to the meaningful reduction of fishing days while optimizing the number of onboard skippers per vessel. Although the portion of skippers per vessel increases substantially at post-ban, this growth minimizes the onboard fishshorting, packaging, and grading works. Therefore, these tasks can be done faster than before.