Community surveillance: how to incorporate customary community in monitoring marine area (study case Panglima Laot in Aceh)

Protecting and managing marine area of Indonesia is a daunting task for government agencies due to the huge and complex area to monitor with limited personnel, tool and fund. In addition, Illegal Unregulated Unreported (IUU) fishing activities become serious threat to environment, economy and sovereignty of Indonesia; therefore, incorporating fisheries community in protecting and managing marine area seems like viable solution for Indonesia government, especially to monitor the huge area. It will add more "eyes and ears" to watch violation in the sea. Customary fisheries community, such as Panglima Laot, is particularly useful to cooperate because it has more control over most fishermen in the area; moreover, most fisheries community already has custom and tradition to protect marine environment. However, incorporating the fisheries community in government system certainly requires some observation to make it work. Firstly, it has to be aligned with Indonesian law and regulations. Secondly, it needs designated authority agency to report on. Thirdly, Fisheries community in Aceh has regulation based on custom and tradition, called Hukom Adat Laot; therefore, it is important to determine where and which activities that will be punished by customary law and by government law. Lastly, some training is required to ensure the community understands the procedure in monitoring and reporting IUU fishing in their area and some communication devices may be necessary to facilitate information from community to authority. Consequently, these require some fund for training and devices provisioning butincorporating community in marine management will give better understanding to community about sustainable utilization which will give more benefits in long run.