Field Story

Pandemic COVID-19 Effect blue swimming crab fisherman in Pemalang

by adminapri October 11, 2021 0 comments

The Covid-19 pandemic in June 2021 began to limit all activities of the crab fisherman community in Pejarakan Village. More than 50% of fishermen and their relatives are sick. This situation greatly affects the economy of the fishermen’s families, their physical condition is not healthy, so they are forced to stop fishing even though the activity of catching crabs is the main occupation of the residents of Pejarakan village. The Fisherman’s wife who works as a peeler was also forced to stop working because of illness. The catch of crabs is increasingly uncertain, some fishermen choose not to go to sea because the sales of crabs cannot cover the cost of fishing supplies. Fishermen really hope that this pandemic will end soon and the catch of crabs will be abundant, but the community motivates each other and prays and is grateful that they can still meet their daily basic needs.

It has been almost 2 years since the COVID-19 pandemic has been in Indonesia. As a maritime country, Indonesia is committed to realizing sustainable and responsible fisheries sector management. This includes increasing the welfare of fishermen as well as state income in the marine and fisheries sector. APRI also provided assistance to the Pemalang area by collaborating with several partners for “Slidarity Crawfish” by providing assistance to fishermen in Pemalang to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

A number of policies issued by the government from the beginning, such as PSBB to PPKM, which are currently still happening in some areas also have an impact on the distribution of fishermen’s catches. The government also continues to strive so that during this pandemic, fishermen can survive and even get back up. (Nur_Arofah/25/06/2021)