As a maritime country, Indonesia has a responsibility to preserve and protect its marine resources. However, Indonesia faces many challenges because 60% of its territory is roofed by ocean. Thus, this condition makes Indonesia almost unable to keep up its resources on account of illegal fishing, which was committed by other foreign fishermen.
As president, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) modified the Indonesian diplomatic strategy from Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Zero Enemy Thousands Friends program to down-to-earth diplomacy. The 9 priorities, often known as NawaCita, concentrate on maintaining Indonesia’s marine resources, in addition to ensuring Indonesia’s status as a Global Maritime Axis.
One of the astonishing moves our current president made was to appoint Susi Pudjiastuti as Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. Susi is different from other ministers in Indonesia. Susi has no higher education, neither a bachelor’s nor a master’s degree in maritime and fisheries. She smokes a cigarette, then admitted that such behavior will not be good. Moreover, he also has a tattoo on his leg. Something that is kind of controversial for Indonesia’s conservative community. However, her enormous work produces extraordinary results and successfully protects Indonesia’s marine resources.
Born in Pangandaran, 15vol In January 1965, Susi had a father named Haji Ahmad Karlan and her mother was Hajjah Suwuh Lasminah. At that point, Susia’s parents ran a big breeding farm as a family business. Susi’s academic journey was also not impressive, as she left highschool when she was in second grade. But for her, the show must go on; She then sold her jewelry and earned Rs 750,000 as an asset for her company. Over time, in 1983, she began collecting fish for her stock exchange. In an interview, she told how she drove a truck to select up fish and sold them in one other city.
For a lady like her, the struggle she was going through was difficult. However, life’s challenges never bring her down. In 1996, Susi founded a fisheries management company called ASI Pudjiastuti Ltd. Marine Product, where the most effective product is lobster. The “Susi brand” eventually spread throughout Asia and America. In 2004, Susi bought a plane to move fish products. He believes that fresh products are more beneficial than frozen products.
Initially, the plane was used to move fish and lobsters from throughout Indonesia to Jakarta and Japan. This aircraft eventually became often known as the Susi Air. Through her experiences, she became aware of the Indonesian maritime situation.
Susi officially became the Ministry of Sea and Fisheries under Joko Widodo on 26vol October 2014. As a minister, she needed to step down from the position of President and Director of PT. ASI Pudjiastuti and PT. for ASI Pudjiastuti Aviation to totally commit to its work as Minister. However, she found that she needed to adapt to the situation of the federal government bureaucracy, because it was the alternative of her usual tasks because the CEO of her own company, where she was in a position to manage every thing in response to her ideal and set policy in response to the assumptions of the situation as quickly as she could.
Despite the federal government’s situation to which she must adapt, she has demonstrated remarkable efficiency. Under her leadership, Indonesia is tightening regulations on illegal fishing; its popular policy is to sink any vessels fishing illegally in Indonesian waters. Its motion not directly expresses a crucial message to anyone who desires to illegally catch Indonesian fish. Therefore, her motion expresses “don’t mess with Indonesia”.
For her outstanding achievements in 2016, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) awarded her the distinguished “Leader for Living Award”. Susi also received the “Benchley Ocean Award for Leadership” in Washington, DC, United States within the eleventh edition.vol May 2017. Moreover, in September 2017, Susi Pudjiastuti was included within the list of 100 inspiring and revolutionary women of 2017, and the award was granted by the British media BBC. Besides, Net Mediatama recognized Susi because the winner of “Creative and Innovative Person of the Year” in 2018 in NET’s Indonesian Choice Awards 5.0, and recently in 2019, Foreign Policy Magazine named 100 thinkers from all over the world, and Susi was included in list of 100 world thinkers.
Indonesia is lucky to have Susi Pudjiastuti because the protector of the ocean. She is working really hard to keep up Indonesian sovereignty. We can learn something vital from her life story, that motion speaks louder. Despite her education, which ended only within the second grade of junior highschool, her vision and actions show a world-class leader.
“Education is only part of what you need in life. The rest is honesty, integrity, discipline and determination.”
_Susi Pudjiastuti_
