a Politic of Seafood Savers on Live Reef Food Fish (a Case Study in Wakatobi Regency, Southeast Sulawesi).

Abstract

Live reef food fish (LRFF) which is a commodity found in Wakatobi has emerged in the era of the 1992’s up to present. The commodities are an expansion phenomenon of a global fishery which is very dynamic. The dynamic trading on the LRFF has affected some problems which relate to an integrated factor linking to social, economy, ecology and policy making factors. These transboundary trading have involved several actors to engage into a global network live reef food fish commodity found from fisherman-middleman(coordinator)-exporters and consumers. The commodities have traded to be based on the assumption of the common property resources due to the open access which is embedded on the LRFF. The practices of the type of trading has effected to the overfishing that has lead to the decline of a fish stock. Moreover, this practice has impacted to the change of the structures of social production, the trading network and market policies. Seafood Savers has a respond to the market failure due to the degradation of the LRFF commodities. Seafood Savers program is a market instrument for LRFF management which is a sustainability orientation. The program of Seafood Savers is an important key to successful implementation of the responsibility fisheries practice on the LRFF in Wakatobi as being in a pilot project supervised by WWF Indonesia. This study used a qualitative approach with constructivism paradigm. This research also was conducted in the interaction with the political ecology and the intuitional analysis to contribute to the study of a sustainability policy on the LRFF. Results of this study indicate that there has been no significant change occurred in the use of the commoditization of live reef fish food. Politics of Seafood Savers have not been able to answer the problem of fishermen on the field. Seafood Savers comes as a power tool market is trying to shed the patron-client ties (Coordinator-fisherman) and tried to lift Seafood Savers policy to accommodate into the form of legal partnership working arrangements between market, state and community.