Laoede Caludin, 51, hurries to tie his boat to a pole on Manokwari Beach one November afternoon. As soon as the boat is secured he rushes his catch to the market to sell.

"It's now getting harder to catch fish," said Caludin, chair of the Borobudur fishermen's group in Padarni subdistrict, West Manokwari.

Caludin makes Rp1 million a month from fishing. In the 1990s, he used to make much more. "I could reach Rp15 million a month," he said.

It now seems as