Konservasi Indonesia
There is increasing attention from government authorities on communities as resource users in the protection and management of natural resources. Realizing the undeniable potential of the community participation in natural resource management, particularly in the preservation and protection of the resources, the government has drawn the community into a systemic and contributive participation at local and national levels. The government apparently underestimates the community’s capacity. In the meantime, it has a tendency and often seriously overestimates its own ability to manage the same resources. Too often, government undermines traditional, indigenous, and local practices and, therefore, creates a burden on the national treasury and budget. Especially in the times when the central government encounters the problems of limited fiscal space and lack of staff and facilities, the management of the natural resources, particularly the coastal resources, should not be entirely centralized but decentralized by enhancing and enlivening community-based, traditional, and indigenous systems.
In the face of rapidly increasing pressures on the natural coastal resources by growing population, industrialization in manufactures, resource degradation due to climate changes, pollution, mismanagement, and rising aspiration of the local people to administer their own resources, there is a need to share responsibility for the resource management with local people, village-based entities, customary institutions, and indigenous communities. The local capacities in managing natural resources should not be overlooked but instead should be intervened in and strengthened to serve the needs of communities.
Indonesia and Timor-Leste are endowed with an extensive community practice in natural resource management. Nevertheless, particularly in Indonesia, most of them have disappeared, become unfunctional, and have been abandoned by those who claim to adhere to the practices. The leading reason for this, according to Bailey and Zerner (1992), is lack of explicit government recognition of the practices. Other important reasons are the centralizing tendency of controlling economically important resources, expanding human population, and the emergence of national and international markets targeting products and species resulting from community-managed areas. Outmigration and urbanization of the young generation are also important variables that make it difficult for older and senior individuals to preserve practices.
Konservasi Indonesia (KI) and Conservation International Timor-Leste (CITL) had an initiative to identify and categorize these community practices in coastal rural areas in both countries. The identified practices are expected to be used to improve coastal resource management based on community participation. A study was carried out by KI and CITL in collaboration with Artha Wacana Christian University (UKAW) and Universidade Oriental Timor-Lorosa’e Timor Leste (UNITAL) in October-December 2024. The study was focused on the Wetar Island and Belu District of Indonesia and the Dili and Bobonaro Municipality of Timor-Leste.
