Arif Satria

Decentralization Policy: An Opportunity for Strengthening Fisheries Management System?

Decentralization is considered the most appropriate form of fisheries governance in which to enable local governments to fundamentally control local fishing by a community-based fisheries management (CBFM) system. The CBFM systems in Indonesia were established and rooted in traditional fishing communities. Nevertheless, the role of these systems has been somewhat undermined by the central government because political decision states that marine areas must be nationally owned. In the decentralization era, however, these traditional systems may be reconsidered as the main social and cultural capital of fisheries management, particularly for coastal fisheries. Based on a case study in Lombok Barat, this article reveals some positive impacts of decentralization policy: state recognition to CBFM systems, devolution of fisheries management to the local people, and strengthening of CBFM systems. These impacts show that decentralization can be an external factor for strengthening the CBFM system.

Politics of marine conservation area in Indonesia: from a centralised to a decentralised system

This paper aims to analyse the current situation resulting from the Marine Conservation Area (MCA) in Indonesia in terms of the legal framework, institutional conflicts and the response of the local people. A case study of the centralised and decentralised MCA in West Lombok is presented, and the process of establishing the MCA and its institutional performance are reviewed. The performance of a centralised system is still questioned because this system marginalises the local people that leads to the rise of conflict and eventually weakens the institution of an MCA. Therefore, strengthening a decentralised system is necessary to increase the sense of stewardship of the local people over the resources, and to shape a new paradigm of the relationship of poor people-environment and conservation-fisheries, so marginalisation of the local people can be avoided and finally a robust institution can be created. Nevertheless, the case of Awig-awig as a type of community-based coral reef management in Gili Indah shows that a decentralised system does not assure achievement of more robust institutional performance. This means that the success of decentralisation is not taken for granted, but there is a prerequisite to be considered. At the community level, the prerequisite is a creation of better institutional arrangement including increasing equitability among resource users, a better representation system during process of consensus building and a well-defined property right system. Furthermore, the improvement of legal frameworks at a national level is necessary to create more harmonious legal products related to the marine conservation with an emphasis on how to recognise and enhance the capacity of the local institution, which may belong to the local government or the local people, in the marine conservation. Thus, community-based management or co-management system can be officially recognised and promoted. In addition, the decentralisation of marine conservation also requires the local governments to have adequate capacity building including the following aspects: administration skill, political savvy, adaptability and expertise skill.

Conclusion: Errors and Insights

In addition to the erroneous assumption that tropical fisheries are ‘open access’ and not managed by pre-existing systems, and therefore require externally imposed management systems to protect resources from collapse and lift fishing communities out of poverty, the Western approach to fisheries ‘development’ and management suffers from several other basic flaws. These are that (1) pre-existing systems are as much, if not more, concerned with the community of fishers and their families and not just fisheries, and their principal role is ensuring community harmony and continuity; (2) pre-existing systems can involve multiple and overlapping rights that are flexible and adapted to changing needs and circumstances; (3) fisheries are just one component of a community resource assemblage with fisheries managed in their ecological context of being dependent on the good management of linked upstream ecosystems, and on risk management and ensuring balanced nutritional resources of the community; and (4) pre-existing systems are greatly affected by a constellation of interacting external pressures for change. If these cultural, ecological, economic, political and social context factors are not appreciated, any ‘imposed management system’ would likely fail from the outset to achieve its goals.

An Introduction to Pre-existing Local Management Systems in Southeast Asia

Although known from colonial times, pre-existing systems of fisheries management in tropical nations have not usually been used as an alternative to introduced Western scientific approaches. During the colonial era non-Western models were disparaged openly, whereas nowadays commonly they are dismissively labeled as ‘traditional’ or ‘special’ cases. Often predicated on misguided theories, during the 1950s and 1960s a massive and experimental packaged transfer of social, economic, financial, educational, and legal systems, together with their underlying cultural values and aspirations regarded pre-existing economies, management systems, and often social and cultural systems as obstacles to modernization. Modernization provided the justification for foreign designers of fisheries management schemes to claim that pre-existing systems were either primitive or unsustainable or often ‘non-existent’. This was reinforced by a general ignorance of the tropics and prejudice on the part of scientists and educators, whose careers were enhanced by work in temperate regions. The generic ‘design principles’ and functioning of pre-existing systems is summarized, together with the status of knowledge on Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Political economy of Agrarian Conflict of Small Island: Case Study in Pari Island, Seribu Islands, Capital Province of Jakarta

ABSTRACTA small island of Pari currently experiencing agrarian conflicts over land involving locals and tourism corporations. This conflict has lasted for more than twenty years and there has been no solution to this dispute. This research chooses a case study approach to discover how the appropriation of the means of production by capital to Pari’s locals and analyze the critical point of capital penetration into the insular region. The data were taken using observation, interviews, archives, focused discussions, and mass-media as a qualitative analysis material by generalizing the empirical findings into the intermediate theoretical analysis. The results show that this process of dispossession involves the state apparatus essentially by manipulating the lack of local knowledge of the formal property system and the application of pseudo-legal system to strengthen the land acquisition process. The Marxian political economic perspective sees the relation between corporation and state in land dispossession in Pari is in order to create a pre-condition for the formation of a new space of capitalism. This new space is based on primitive accumulation by separating humans from their means of production and creating landless people as the foundation for the operation of capital accumulation by the tourism industry and potentially excluding fishers or local communities as actors in small island resource management.Keywords: accumulation by dispossesion, agrarian conflict, political economy, small islandABSTRAKPulau kecil Pari saat ini mengalami konflik agraria atas tanah yang melibatkan masyarakat lokal dan korporasi wisata. Konflik ini telah berlangsung selama lebih dari duapuluh tahun dan belum ada solusi atas sengketa ini. Penelitian ini memilih pendekatan studi kasus untuk menemukan cara kerja perampasan alat produksi oleh kapital terhadap wargan Pari dan menganalisis kegentingan dari penetrasi kapital ke wilayah insular. Data diambil memanfaatkan observasi, wawancara, arsip, diskusi terfokus, dan media massa sebagai bahan analisis secara kualitatif dengan menggeneralisasi temuan empirik dalam analisis teoritik level menengah. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa proses perampasan ini melibatkan aparat negara secara esensial dengan cara memanipulasi ketiadaan pengetahuan warga lokal terhadap sistem properti formal dan bekerjanya sistem pseudo-legal untuk menguatkan proses akuisisi tanah tersebut. Perspektif ekonomi politik Marxian dalam penelitian ini melihat bahwa relasi kapitalistik antara korporasi dan negara dalam perampasan tanah di Pari adalah dalam rangka menciptakan pra-kondisi bagi pembentukan ruang baru kapitalisme. Ruang baru ini berbasis akumulasi primitif dengan melucuti manusia dari alat produksi dan menciptakan manusia tanpa tanah sebagai fondasi bagi operasi akumulasi kapital oleh industri wisata dan berpotensi menyingkirkan nelayan atau masyarakat lokal sebagai aktor dalam pengelolaan sumber daya pulau kecil.Kata kunci: akumulasi dengan perampasan, ekonomi politik, konflik agraria, pulau kecil

The effect of owned and earned social media activities towards purchase intention on Facebook

With the growth of internet connection, the Indonesia people are getting more and more connected to each other with the rise of social media, especially facebook in which nowadays has become one of the mainstream channel for companies to inform their product and to share their brand value to the consumer. This research will oversee the technology acceptance aspect in which affected by the ease of use and joyfulness of the users, owned social media aspect or the channel that are owned and can be controlled by companies or brand alike whose the acceptance of the information are affected by usefulness, reputation, trust, and altruism. And the earned social media aspects which are affected by information acceptance and social connection. The research are conducted by sending questioners to facebook users who is a consumer of Stella air freshener products. The research shown that technology acceptance aspects are not significantly affected the perception of a product fanpage, in the contrary earned and owned social media aspects along with the factors that affecting it has shown as significantly affected the perception of the users in facebook toward the fanpage, who in the end will affecting their purchase intention to the product of the fanpage.