RECONSTRUCTING FISHERIES SUSTAINABILITY IN INDONESIA’S QUOTA-BASED FISHERIES POLICY

The growing adoption of quota-based fisheries governance reflects global efforts to reconcile resource conservation with economic development. In Indonesia, the Measured Fishing Policy (PIT) represents a major fisheries governance reform grounded in quota allocation, rights-based fisheries management, and blue economy principles. While existing studies have predominantly assessed the policy’s legal, economic, and institutional effectiveness, limited attention has been given to the philosophical assumptions shaping its construction of sustainability. This study aims to examine the sustainability paradigm embedded in PIT and reconstruct its normative orientation through the five precepts of Pancasila. Employing a qualitative doctrinal legal research design with a philosophical orientation to examine the sustainability paradigm embedded in Indonesia’s Measured Fishing Policy (PIT) and to reconstruct its normative foundations through the philosophical framework of Pancasila using qualitative content and thematic analysis. The study finds that PIT constructs sustainability through a governance paradigm centered on resource control, quota allocation, rights-based fisheries management, and blue economy principles. Within this framework, economic optimization functions as the primary objective, while ecological conservation is positioned largely as an instrument for maintaining resource productivity and long-term economic benefits. Consequently, social justice occupies a secondary and largely instrumental role within the policy structure. In response, this study develops a Pancasila-Based Fisheries Sustainability Framework that reorients fisheries sustainability around ecological sustainability and social justice as the principal normative objectives, while positioning economic growth as a means rather than an end. The originality of this research lies in reconstructing the hierarchical relationship among sustainability dimensions through a Pancasila-based perspective. The study contributes theoretically to sustainability and fisheries governance scholarship by offering an alternative conceptual framework that integrates ecological integrity, human dignity, national solidarity, participatory governance, and social justice into a coherent model of fisheries sustainability.