NTT’s 66,126-fisher estimate is anchored to 2009 data
A regional socio-economic profile for the Arafura and Timor Seas recorded 66,126 fishers in East Nusa Tenggara based on 2009 data from Indonesia’s fisheries statistics.
By Pandi Muktar
Editor: Mursyid Sonsang
· Event date: · 4 min read
Kupang — — An estimate of 66,126 fishers in East Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Timur, NTT) refers to conditions in 2009 and should be treated as a historical baseline rather than a current count of people working in fisheries.
The figure appears in the Socio-economic Profile of the Arafura and Timor Seas, a report prepared for the Arafura and Timor Seas Ecosystem Action (ATSEA) Program and published in 2011 as part of a wider assessment of the region’s environment, resources and coastal communities.
The profile compiles existing data and literature from Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Australia to support a transboundary diagnostic analysis of the Arafura and Timor Seas and inform regional and national action planning, rather than conducting new field surveys.
What the 66,126 figure represents
In the ATSEA socio-economic profile and the related Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA), NTT is one of several provinces bordering the Arafura and Timor Seas. A key table in both documents lists the number of fishers, total reported catch and reported value of catches across the ATS region for 2009, drawing on data from Indonesia’s Directorate General of Capture Fisheries.
For NTT, that table records 66,126 fishers, a reported catch of 117,190 tonnes and an estimated value of 53.7 million Australian dollars for 2009. The ATSEA TDA explicitly attributes the underlying figures for Indonesian provinces to DGCF 2010, indicating they are drawn from existing national fisheries statistics rather than fresh fieldwork by the ATSEA team.
Separate national compilations of marine and coastal resource statistics by Indonesia’s statistics agency list the same provincial total of 66,126 fishers for NTT in 2009, broken down into 21,698 full-time, 32,863 part-time and 11,565 occasional fishers. This supports using 66,126 as a province-wide baseline from 2009 for people engaged in capture fisheries in NTT.
Neither the ATSEA profile nor the TDA discusses gender-disaggregated counts for NTT in that year, and the DGCF-based national table lists totals by employment category without specifying how many women are included.
Not a current headcount
The ATSEA socio-economic profile describes its approach as synthesising existing knowledge, literature and research findings to build a shared view of socioeconomic and livelihood issues in the Arafura and Timor Seas region. It does not present new enumeration of fishers in NTT beyond the DGCF statistics for 2009, and later ATSEA thematic documents note that precise, up-to-date figures on people engaged in fishing as a primary occupation remain limited in parts of the region.
Indonesian statistical publications after 2009 track related indicators for NTT, such as the number of marine-fishing households and fishery entrepreneurs, and show changes between 2010 and 2011. However, they do not reproduce the same province-wide fisher total by employment category every year, and more recent national marine resource compilations list incomplete or anomalous values for NTT for 2010–2014.
On the available evidence, the 66,126 figure is best used as a historical reference point for 2009. Treating it as a current count would risk overstating or understating how many people in NTT are now directly affected by fisheries management, conservation measures and coastal-planning decisions.
Why an updated baseline matters
A reliable, current baseline for the number and characteristics of fishers in NTT would help officials, communities and investors judge how policy changes and economic trends are affecting livelihoods in coastal areas and islands linked to the Arafura and Timor Seas.
It would also allow clearer analysis of how different groups — full-time, part-time and occasional fishers, and women and men in fishing households — experience shifts in access rules, conservation measures, quotas or coastal development, something that is not possible with the aggregated 2009 figure alone.
Until newer, well-documented provincial statistics are available, the ATSEA-linked estimate of 66,126 fishers in NTT for 2009, supported by national marine resource statistics, remains a useful baseline for historical comparison but not a substitute for current data.
Sources
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