Marine Tenure in Indonesia's Makassar Strait: The Mandar Raft Fishery

Abstract

"Although a diversity of contemporary common property marine resource management systems has been documented in the South Pacific, the existence and utility of marine CPR practices on the coasts and islands of Indonesia's vast archipelago of more than 13,000 islands have been questioned.

"This paper reviews developments in one contemporary marine CPR system, the Mandar raft fishery, and briefly relates preliminary findings concerning another, the Balabalangan Islands' fishery. The role of these local resource management practices in regulating access to local environments is reviewed, as are their inadequacies. Both marine tenure systems are alive but under assault: they are being undermined and delegitimized by governmental administrative practices and judicial decisions. Adverse consequences of governmental interventions in these fisheries CPRs probably entails diminished welfare of local communities and decreased capacity to limit emerging environmental pressures on local resource bases. Strategies for strengthening, focusing, and refining existing marine CPRs as viable resource-management institutions are suggested."