Dirk J. Steenbergen

Social dimensions of local fisheries co-management in the Coral Triangle

The challenge to manage coastal resources within Asia-Pacifics Coral Triangle has gained global attention. Co-management is promoted as a key strategy to address this challenge. Contemporary community-based co-management often leads to ‘hybridization’ between local (customary) practices, and science-based management and conservation. However, the form of this hybrid has rarely been critically analysed. This paper presents examples of co-management practices in eastern Indonesia and Solomon Islands, focusing in particular on area closures. In contrast to the temporary closures used before the influx of sustainability discourses, contemporary closures are periodically-harvested but predominantly closed, reflecting attempts to reduce fishing effort and enhance ecological sustainability. When areas are opened, harvests are relatively short and largely triggered by the social and economic needs of particular individuals or whole communities. In all cases, engagement with environmental management interventions has led to more formalized access and use arrangements. The harvesting and management practices observed are influenced by these relatively recent interventions designed to promote sustainability, but also by religious institutions, increasing resource demand, and modernization. This study unpacks some of the contemporary influences, particularly environmental sustainability initiatives, on local management practices, and provides insights for co-management in practice.

Strategic Customary Village Leadership in the Context of Marine Conservation and Development in Southeast Maluku, Indonesia

This article critically examines engagements of village leaders in an NGO-facilitated participatory conservation program in eastern Indonesia. It explores how the program’s implementation strengthened leadership legitimacy of a dominant customary social group. Customary leaders ensured distribution according to particular norms, and in organizing village governance upheld specific interests and claims over natural resources. Villagers outside of the customary group remained marginalized in village governance, despite being important stakeholders. Findings reveal complex relationships between leaders and villagers that were strongly framed by orders of power and cultural history, which influenced how and to what extent peripheral groups participated. The case study concludes that village leaders can form effective avenues to deliver on conservation outcomes. However, in their preoccupation with maintaining leadership legitimacy, they may inadequately address dynamic intra-community tensions that could jeopardize long-term outcomes. Co-management partners can play significant roles in adapting management and prompting more inclusive governance processes.

Caught Between Mediation and Local Dependence: Understanding the Role of Non-government Organisations in Co-management of Coastal Resources in Eastern Indonesia

ABSTRACT Resolving contestations over resource management rights around coastal villages remains a focal challenge for co-management initiatives in remote coastal zones. Contemporary socio-political settings increasingly see local people having to negotiate between local long-standing (horizontal) relationships and new emerging (vertical) relationships which involve collaborations with outside actors who try to assume neutral mediating positions. Using two conflicts, this article examines the rise and fall of a participatory coastal resource management program in eastern Indonesia involving a fishing community engaged in a co-management arrangement with a conservation non-government organisation (NGO). An actor-oriented approach is applied to analyse how these conflicts shape, drive and direct collaborations across the community–NGO interface. We discuss how these impact the implementation of the conservation ethics and sustainable natural resource management practices, and show how particular mediating capacities of an NGO may overcome, and even build forth on, conflict in some contexts but fall short in others. We argue that local resource user groups and conservation teams operate according to strong local relationships that are entrenched in cultural–historical hierarchies of power. We moreover note that these local relationships significantly influence the extent of neutrality of external groups in their mediating, coordinating and technical advisory roles. The effectiveness of co-management partnerships hinges on the ability to balance actors’ mediating capacity with their local dependence for operation.

Governance and Governability: The Small-Scale Purse Seine Fishery in Pulau Rote, Eastern Indonesia

Rote is Indonesia’s southern-most island with a population of approximately 128,000 people. Largely unregulated small-scale fisheries are integral to local livelihood strategies. Local catches are highly diverse, which reflects regional biodiversity and mixed fishing strategies. Rote’s four mile coastal marine zone open to local small-scale fisheries is porous, resulting in competition against fishers from outside the district. Beyond these four miles local fishers compete against large-scale fishing operations for declining resources. To maintain fisheries sustainability and improve fishing-dependant livelihoods, improved governance is needed. Aligning with the interactive governance framework, this chapter examines a small-scale purse seine fishery operating around Rote waters, looking in particular at the implications of governance change through a coherent, carefully prioritized, reform scheme of investment and management. We argue that the major challenges to effective governance frameworks for small-scale fisheries in Rote include: (i) poor information flow that impedes new discourses on the comparative advantages of alternative arrangements leaving governing bodies consistently confronted by wicked problems; (ii) local attitudes towards compliance with fisheries laws and a limited capacity for enforcement; and (iii) a hierarchical governance system characterized by insecure tenure and competing governance priorities. We also present and argue for some likely pathways to improved governance.

Understanding Social Wellbeing and Values of Small-Scale Fisheries amongst the Sama-Bajau of Archipelagic Southeast Asia

The Sama-Bajau represent one of the most widely dispersed Indigenous groups in Southeast Asia. Recent estimates indicate a total population of approximately 1.1 million, with around 200,000 living in areas of high biodiversity in the islands of eastern Indonesia, 347,000 in Malaysia (Sabah) and 564,000 in the Philippines. Sama-Bajau culture is intimately connected to marine environments on which they depend for subsistence and cash income, as well as their cultural identity. Culturally defined patterns of fishing activity (including migratory expeditions) unite all sectors of Sama-Bajau communities through catching, consuming, processing and trading of marine resources. Fishing and gathering of shellfish and other strand resources provide the focus for individual and communal relations within villages and across extensive kin and trading networks. The maintenance and transmission of Indigenous language and knowledge between generations occurs through socialisation into livelihoods and related social and cultural activities. As such, customary beliefs and practices in relation to boats and sea spirits endure among the Sama-Bajau, and are primarily oriented to ensuring return on fishing effort. Sama-Bajau small-scale fisheries (SSF) across insular Southeast Asia therefore present a highly relevant case study. We will explore the dimensions of social wellbeing in the Sama-Bajau context and identify how the Sama-Bajau have responded to endogenously developed and exogenously induced drivers. Utilising our collective experience of Sama-Bajau society in diverse locations across Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, we will discuss the parameters of continuity and transformation in the Sama-Bajau way of life. The case study offers the opportunity to explore how historical and contemporary drivers have contributed to the variability of Sama-Bajau social welfare, spatially and temporally.

Community Driven Development and Structural Disadvantage: Interrogating the Social Turn in Development Programming in Indonesia

Abstract Community-driven development (CDD) programmes have emerged on a large scale in the Global South following research and policy work regarding social capital, capabilities and empowerment. This paper analyses one of the largest international examples of the ‘social’ turn, examining the effects of the CDD approach in governmental, structural and relational terms. While the CDD approach successfully generated new political rationalities and governmental technologies, the ability of development programming driven by social capital concepts to empower marginalised sections of society remains in question. The ambiguities associated with CDD outcomes indicate the contradictions at the heart of social capital debate.

Laying Foundations for Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management with Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines: Lessons from Australia and Southeast Asia

Ecosystem approaches are increasingly mainstreamed in contemporary debate on small-scale fisheries management, however many small-scale fisheries lack solid institutional and scientific foundations on which to build such holistic and inherently more complex management systems. Most small-scale fisheries still operate with little or no effective management. Proponents of ecosystem approaches frequently malign single-species management models that placed less emphasis on wider ecosystem effects. However these ‘simpler’ approaches are responsible for significant management successes, even in contexts where fisheries were not strictly single species. We argue for incremental development of fisheries management more deeply rooted in successful past management systems. At this stage, there appears too little capacity to manage the complexity associated with a complete paradigm overhaul towards ecosystem-based approaches. The multi-dimensional importance of small-scale fisheries is highlighted in the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries, where ecosystem approaches are identified to guide holistic, integrated management, and facilitate cross institutional interactions. Its application is nuanced and connected with practical measures to ensure that principles of decency, equity, and responsibility, define management’s fabric. We draw from this in problematizing the adoption of ecosystem approaches and examine the implications for small-scale fisheries management. We present six small-scale fisheries case studies; two in Australia where comparatively simple management models were applied, two operating in trans-boundary contexts with Australia and two operating under very different social, political and economic conditions in the wider region of Indonesia. We suggest initial management approaches should primarily strive for better grounding and more realistic targets.