TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (KKP) has secured management rights for approximately 20,413.25 hectares of forest land from the Forestry Ministry. This area will be utilized for President Prabowo Subianto's priority program: food security within forest areas.
"The real condition in the field is that the area already consists of fish ponds," said Budi Daya Tinggal Hermawan, Secretary of the Directorate General of Fish Farming, at his office in Jakarta on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.
According to Tinggal, the designated food security forest areas are located across four regencies, namely Bekasi, Karawang, Subang, and Indramayu. He explained that the initiative is part of the North Coast (Pantura) of West Java revitalization program, which will prioritize environmentally friendly aquaculture systems.
Each area will be equipped with a Wastewater Treatment Plant (IPAL) and vegetation zones to act as natural filters, preserving the marine ecosystem. "The land will still retain its forest status," he clarified.
Tinggal mentioned that these locations were chosen because the land is state-owned, simplifying the process of revitalizing the fish ponds, which will focus on tilapia cultivation. He added that the choice of fish species aligns with the environmental conditions of Java's North Coast.
"The ponds there were operating without proper permits, so we took over to improve community welfare, especially since the Pantura has been known as a pocket of poverty," he explained.
Meanwhile, Ikhsan Kamil, Director of Marine Fish, indicated that the revitalization aims to boost pond productivity from 0.6 tons to 144 tons per hectare per year.
"The production volume could reach 1.18 million tons, with an approximate value of Rp 30.65 trillion, and create over 119,000 job opportunities in the upstream and downstream sectors," Kamil, commonly known as Emil, said in a written statement on Friday, July 18, 2025.
Earlier, Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, had outlined that the Pantura fish pond revitalization program seeks to transform unproductive fish pond land into high-value, sustainable, and environmentally friendly aquaculture zones. The arrangement will cover cultivation zones, support zones, and green zones.
Regarding the policy of designating forest areas for food security, Tempo attempted to obtain a response from the Ministry of Forestry concerning the issuance of Forestry Ministerial Decree No. 274 of 2025.
Supardi, Head of the Legal Bureau at the Forestry Ministry, suggested directing the query to the Directorate General of Forestry Planning for details on the decree's substance. However, Tempo's interview request to Ade Tri Ajikusumah, the Director General of Forestry Planning, has not yet received a response.
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