On Thursday, February 25, 2021, FRCI held a discussion with the Department of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (DKP) of the Selayar Islands Regency. The discussion was conducted virtually and was attended by the FRCI Manager (Dwi Putra Yuwandana, M.Sc.), FRCI Experts (Tasrif Kartawijaya, M.Sc.), and was attended by the Head of the Selayar Islands DKP (Ir. Makkawaru) and his staff.

The Head of the Selayar Islands DKP opened the discussion with a presentation on the condition of fish data collection which is still being done manually. Not all of the landing of fish by fishermen is done at the fishing port, which makes the administrator still unable to find the right data collection model to be applied there. “Currently, fishery data collection has been carried out but it is still manual. In addition, restrictions to access because fishermen are spread throughout the islands are also a constraint in itself”, said Ir. Makkawaru.

The discussion continued with a presentation by Dwi Putra Yuwandana (FRCI) regarding the model of digitizing fishery data using smartphones. Data collection with this model has been carried out by the FRCI Team in Central Java Province for the last two years. Dwi added that although the conditions were different from Central Java Province, this data collection model could be applied in the Selayar Islands Regency. The data collection model could be adjusted according to the data to be collected and the information to be presented. The fisheries data collection model created by the FRCI Team is called IKAN (Fishery Data Collection Collaboration Initiative).

Digitizing fishery data is the right step for the advancement of fisheries in Indonesia. For fisheries administrators, the data collection process can be done more easily and quickly, and more data can be collected.