Studies of fishermen’s economic loss due to oil spills

Abstract

Offshore oil-drilling activities have a significant potential to generate pollutants which of them is from oil spills. Oil spills in the coastal ecosystem harm the marine ecosystem and human activities. The disrupted environment of the waters by the oil spills causes social-economic losses, specifically impacting the decline of fishery products and the community’s living standard on the coast. The immediate economic effect of the oil spills is, among others, the death of marine organisms due to the oil layers on the water surface, causing economic losses to the fishermen. The decline in the marine environment quality is directly proportional to the decrease in fishermen’s incomes. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the fishermen’s economic losses caused by the oil spills. The research method used is the mixed method which is a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The outcome of this research is not only the damage of oil spills to the environment, but it also causes an economic impact on the people around the affected area. The connection between the environmental damage and the community’s income is due to the offshore community’s reliance on natural resources as their source of income. The average of the difference fishermen’s losses after oil spills has reached 76% or Rp. 177,875/trip, which is due to the decrease in the fish caught so that the fishermen could not sell them.