Comércio

A situação de desenvolvimento costeiro no Timor-Leste é delicada. Entre diversos fatores, o comércio de pescado associado à segurança alimentar é um tópico a ser trabalhado na nação. O acesso ao gelo é extremamente restrito com alto custo financeiro e as técnicas de conservação do produto se baseiam no dessalgue, conforme foto abaixo. Peixes frescos são vendidos nas ruas e estradas, mesmo sem saber a quanto tempo ele está naquela condição. Tons de coloração de brânqueas são indicadores de qualidade usados pelos vendedores, mas ainda sim não garantem o estado de conservação do produto.

    

By: Sam Bateman and Anthony Bergin, The Australian - 21/05/2012.

The 10th anniversary of East Timor's independence was marked yesterday. As it is still a fledging nation wrestling with the challenge of creating a viable state, Australia must work with East Timor to advance our common interests, not just to ensure the state's survival but to strengthen regional security.

Maritime issues are an obvious pathway for fostering good relations. Common interests in the maritime region include security, resource development and marine environmental protection, all areas of Australian expertise.

Australia has a vital interest in maintaining good order in the Timor Sea. It is important the weak domestic law-enforcement capabilities in East Timor do not create a situation where the country becomes a transit point for people-smuggling and illegal trafficking into Australia, as well as a support base for illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing in our seas.

The southern waters of East Timor provide a safe haven for mother ships supporting illegal fishing in our offshore zone. Sri Lankan refugees have tried to enter Australia illegally from East Timor. And there have been attempts at smuggling drugs from the country to Australia.

We have an interest in the security of shipping passing near East Timor: the Ombai and Wetar Straits are used extensively by shipping bound to and from northwest Australian ports and the Torres Strait.

It's not yet clear after Fukushima what place nuclear power will have in Japan's long-term energy plans. But there is likely to be a major increase in liquid natural gas exports to Japan. This will add to the strategic importance of the joint-development zone in the Timor Sea, where several gas projects are either under way or being considered.

We should do more to help East Timor manage its ocean affairs. Yet AusAID's Australia-Timor-Leste Country Strategy 2009-14 makes no mention of any maritime requirements.

Co-operation on maritime surveillance depends on information-sharing between adjacent countries. But such institutional arrangements between Australia, Indonesia and East Timor are lacking at both national and regional levels.

The 2006 treaty between Australia and East Timor on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea provides for a joint maritime commission, but it has never met. The commission should discuss the whole range of maritime issues that are shared concerns of both countries, such as customs, illegal people movement and illegal fishing.

East Timor is putting a lot of faith in a proposed national maritime authority, based on the Portuguese model. But it is not clear how the authority would relate to existing organisations.

These are matters for Dili to resolve, but Canberra should stand ready to offer assistance when requested.

Australia should also revisit the issue of maritime enforcement capability. The East Timor defence force commander, Major-General Lere Anan Timur, has recently asked his government to urgently buy a new boat to control illegal fishing off the south coast.

East Timor's navy and marine police will soon have between them around 10 vessels, none with the capability of conducting operations in the area where illegal activity is taking place. East Timor's national fleet will soon be about half the numbers of the Australian-donated Pacific patrol boat fleet of 22 vessels given to 12 Pacific island states.

Australia has offered a number of maritime security initiatives to East Timor in recent years. Not all were accepted: the East Timorese have at times wanted to demonstrate they are not locked into "big brother". For better or worse, they have chosen to go their own way with acquiring naval capabilities.

But Australia should now be doing all we can to develop the operational and organisational structures that East Timor needs to develop a meaningful and sustainable maritime security force for the longer term.

Such a force would not just be in Australia's interests but would also be an important contribution to regional maritime security.

After 10 years of independence, assistance with building East Timor's maritime capability is a key area where we should still be contributing to the country's national security.

And it would be a good fit with Foreign Minister Bob Carr's recent comments that he wants to make sustainable ocean management a key objective of Australian foreign policy.

Sam Bateman and Anthony Bergin are the co-authors of Sea Change: Advancing Australia's Ocean Interests, Australian Strategic Policy

Parque Nacional Nino Konis Santana

Foto da extremidade leste do Timor-Leste. Nesta região, estabeleceu-se em 2007 o Parque Nacional Nino Konis Santana (importante guerrilheiro anti-indonésia). A região abriga 3 distritos e tem uma área de 123,590 hectares e possuí uma rica biodiversidade terrestre e marinha. A ilha de Jacó (extremo leste) também faz parte do parque e é um dos pontos mais preservados de toda a nação.

Arroz em Ataúro

Suplemento de arroz desembarcado na Ilha de Ataúro.

Essa foto foi feita em dezembro/2011 quando algumas toneladas de arroz foram desembarcados na Ilha de Ataúro. Cada saca possuí 25kg e foi distribuída para toda ilha. Não sei dizer como funciona o comércio do cereal, mas foi impressionante ver a entrega sendo feita. 

CTI, TImor and MPA

O Timor-Leste é um dos países membros do Coral Triangle Initiative, um acordo entre 6 países que visa desenvolver planos de ações costeiras nos âmbitos ecológicos e sociais nestas nações. Abaixo, uma notícia sobre as áreas de proteção marinha proposta pela iniciativa. Em breve, detalharei melhor a relação do CTI e do Timor-Leste.

Coral Triangle Privatization Plan Opposed

By MARVYN N. BENANING

Source: Manila Bulletin

May 3, 2012, 3:13pm

MANILA, Philippines - An alliance of Southeast Asian fisheries groups is opposing a plan of the member-states of the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) to forge Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) ostensibly to protect the center of global marine biodiversity.

The Southeast Asia Fish for Justice (SEAFish) renewed its appeal for officials of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Timor Leste not to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the 6-million-square-kilometer waters of the Coral Triangle without consulting millions of fishermen engaged in subsistence fisheries.

Fisheries, agriculture and environment ministers from the six countries are actually seeking financial support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the key financial backer of the CTI.

SEAFish has 16 member-organizations, 14 of which are non-government organizations (NGOs) and two national fisherfolk federations from within and outside the region.

These groups are: FACT of Cambodia; KONPHALINDO, KIARA, Nen Mas IL, Telapak and WALHI of Indoneisa; CASCO, ELAC, KM, LAFCCOD, PROCESS, Tambuyog Development Center and Developers of the Philippines; MCD of Vietnam; ISANET of the US, and; Oxfam units in East Asia.

SEAFish claims that in Southeast Asia, between 25 million and 35 million people are di¬rectly engaged in fisheries as a livelihood. Moreover, at least 365 million people depend on fishery products for food and protein intake.

It adds that assessments of the quality of ecosystems that fishery industries rely on show that approxi¬mately 55 percent of the coral reefs in the region are seriously damaged and 75 percent of formerly existing mangrove habitats have disappeared.

Fisheries resources  in South and Southeast Asia are under increasing pressure even as it contributes between 5 percent and 10 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the region and almost $8 billion in export earnings.

For SEAFish, the four major threats on fishery resources and ecosystems are: Rapidly growing populations; diminishing natural resources; increasing trade link¬ages and the facilitation of extraction and trade of fishery commodities for international markets, and; weak domestic governance systems.

The network was officially established in August 2003 in a re¬gional conference in Manila when 14 NGOs decided to combine forces to develop an international lobby, advocacy, and campaigning platform on fisheries and fisheries development issues in the region.

SEAFish stressed that the six member-states of the CTI have linked up after substantial multilateral and foreign investments without consulting marginal fishermen and in the guise of protecting nations with the least capacity to respond to tsunamis, storm surges and floods as well as coastal degradation.

Speaking on behalf of SEAFish, Ruperto Aleroza said the ADB and other agencies involved with CTI should replace its current ap¬proach with a community-based coastal resource management (CBCRM) approach to ensure the conservation of the marine re¬sources in the Coral Triangle while assuring the participation of small fishers and fish farmers in fisheries management and achieve  inclusive growth.

CTI’s top-down approach is contrary to the theme of “Inclusive Growth through Better Governance and Partnerships” of the 45th ADB Annual Meeting which is now ongoing at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).

“Contrary to ADB’s theme, CTI uses a top-down or even technocratic approach to fisheries management. Thus there is very little or no participation of small fishers and other stakeholders in the coastal communities, especially in program planning and implemen¬tation. Civil society participation in CTI is limited to big international NGOs, namely the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), Conservation International and The Nature Con¬servancy,” Aleroza said.

CTI has been implemented in the Coral Triangle since 2007 with ample funding from the ADB.

Aleroza stressed that MPAs, where fishing will be prohibited, are being mulled without consult¬ing with small fishermen.

Worse, he said SEAFish member-organizations in the Coral Triangle have claimed that MPAs are being established in traditional fishing grounds, and would hurt small fisherfolk.

He noted that CTI’s Plan of Action and its sub-projects are funded initially with  $443 million and are designed for conservation of marine resources and the establish¬ment of large-scale MPAs.