Strengthening climate change adaptation strategy of fishermen (a case study in Peatland River, Kerumutan Sub District, Riau, Indonesia)

This research aimed to find out the peatland river fishermen's adapting strategy against the climate change and the effects of strengthening the strategy. This study was an action research using participatory rural appraisal. The results showed that so far the fishermen employed local wisdom in predicting the fish output of the peatland river. The method considered the rainy days rate in mapping the quantity of tuakang, pelumpung, toman, and snakehead freshwater fish species. Local flood occurrences became the main indicator of the initiation for high fish production period. The water hyacinths preservation in pandanus forest to support fish reproduction and sunlight-dependence manual fish processing indicated the naturefriendly behaviour of fishermen community. Several attempts have been taken to reinforce the adaptation strategy of fishermen, i.e.: (1) developing the capacity of fishermen group, including preparing the fish season calendar and, fishermen time map, also fishermen institution relation map; (2) conducting training for fish processing verification; and (3) advising on the processing of water hyacinth for alternative products.