Establishment And Integration of Marine Protected Areas, Small-Scale Fisheries Management, and Improved Community Livelihoods in Indonesia’s Bird’s Head Seascape
Location
Raja Ampat Islands, Indonesia
The challenge
Indonesia’s Bird‘s Head Seascape (BHS) is a global hotspot for marine biodiversity, home to 600+ coral species and nearly 2,000 reef fish species. It is a fast-growing tourism destination, directly providing livelihoods for 350,000+ people and supporting the national economy with US $2 Million per year. in tourism revenue.
Despite its global and national importance, approximately 462,000 hectares of the BHS’s critical habitats and ecosystems are not protected and suffer from biodiversity loss, destructive and illegal fishing, over-exploitation, mass tourism, and climate change. This puts local livelihoods and provincial and national tourism revenue at risk. Currently, the Government of Indonesia (GOI), NGOs, and communities have limited technical capacity and resources to reverse this trend. Although there is political will to improve the sustainability of the BHS’ marine resources, to date the national focus has been on capture fisheries especially in combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing rather than integrated spatial management mechanisms like marine protected areas (MPAs).
Actions taken
The Nature Conservancy (TNC)’s work in Raja Ampat is now carried out by Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara (YKAN), TNC’s main partner in Indonesia.
This project will support GOI efforts to improve coastal livelihoods and marine biodiversity along with the improved management of 6 million hectares of existing MPAs. It will lead to the designation of nearly half a million hectares of new MPAs and Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (TURF) areas; this represents 15% of the GOI’s National MPA target (30 million ha by 2030; with approximately 23 million already designated) over the next 4.5 years. It will also establish a mechanism to support sustainable livelihood development in at least 7 community groups, directly benefiting up to 1,850 people whose livelihoods (fisheries, tourism, transportation) depend on the three Areas of Interest (AoI), and indirectly supporting improved quality of life of 49,569 people.
The project will use 3 integrated approaches based on TNC’s experience in Indonesia and the BHS:
- MPAs that integrate TURFs: We will assist the GOI, particularly the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF/KKP) and local Agencies for Marine Affairs and Fisheries (DKP), to establish MPAs that integrate TURFs, an emergent fisheries management approach that will help to address unrestricted access to fisheries resources across 462,000 ha of AoI in the BHS. The project will use a tool for community engagement planning called SIGAP, or ‘Inspiring Community Action for Change’, which was developed by TNC and allows for the integration of MPA and fisheries management science and local knowledge in village development. The result of the SIGAP process will inform management decisions by the village and regency government. SIGAP is based on principles aligned with IUCN’s CEAP (Community Environment Action Planning), but with increased attention on communities’ sustainable livelihoods. TNC developed SIGAP in the East Kalimantan Province, where the Government adopted this methodology in its own practices. Currently, SIGAP is used as the tool for village development in 100+ villages across Indonesia, including 4 villages in Kofiau and South Misool, both in the BHS, near the proposed project location.
- Capacity building for improved MPA and TURFs and livelihoods: We will provide support and capacity building to a representative of West Papua Provincial government and representatives from three regencies (Sorong, Tambrauw, Raja Ampat). This capacity building will focus on MPA and TURF design, marine spatial planning, livelihood improvement, sustainable financing for MPAs, and ensuring alignment between plans and policies. We will also provide guidelines to the provincial government for monitoring and evaluation for areas in and around MPAs, based on best practices from other countries in the Asia Pacific region (including Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia, where TNC has worked for 25+ years) and other regions globally (including North America, the Caribbean, and the Western Indian Ocean).
- Improving community livelihoods: The project will improve current livelihood practices including artisanal fisheries and aquaculture by providing technical expertise for responsible fisheries and aquaculture, and improved post-harvest handling and marketing of the products. The project will also work with the communities and biotechnology experts to identify potential opportunities to transform sustainably harvested marine resources such as the abundant marine macroalgae and mangrove fruits of the BHS into intermediary products for health, cosmetics, and other industrial materials which have high economic value in international markets.
To link livelihood improvement with conservation efforts and to ensure sustainability after the project ends, we will help the community to establish ‘Kios Konservasi’ (Conservation Kiosk), a TNC approach that provides income incentives for community members implementing environmentally friendly standards in the use of marine resources and ecosystem services.
How successful has it been?
Communities traditionally declared their zoning plans at Kofiau, South Misool, and North Misool in 2011, 2012, and 2019 respectively. Resource use monitoring has documented a significant decline in destructive fishing in all of the MPAs in the network. No-take zones that are actively being enforced are already showing signs of recovery of fish biomass, and coral communities continue to remain steady and are flourishing.
The current status of ecosystem health, human well-being, MPA management, and marine resource governance is variable in the Bird’s Head Seascape MPA Network. At the Seascape level, two ecosystem indicators remain stable, and one shows improvement. While ecological trends vary among MPAs, across the Seascape both hard coral cover and the biomass of fish functional groups shows a slight increase (Pakiding et. al 2019).
Lessons learned and recommendations
- Strong tri-partnership, collaboration and joint-vision, goal and objective between the international NGOs TNC, Conservation International and WWF helped to design and implement an effective network of resilient network of MPAs at a Seascape scale by pooling resources where possible, ensuring lessons learned were shared across sites and organizations.
- Significant time and resources invested in community participatory processes and resulted in local communities being actively involved in the declaration of MPAs and the design of zoning plans, and traditional management systems were integral in the final design. This meant that communities were generally more receptive to adjustments to zones once their primary socioeconomic criteria and considerations were addressed. This, in turn, generated a greater sense of environmental stewardship and communities were then more open to identifying no take zones and adopting more sustainable harvesting practices.
- It was important to collect comprehensive biological, biophysical and socioeconomic datasets to adequately understand and characterize the MPAs, and incorporate this information into the final design of zoning plans. Socioeconomic datasets in particular were invaluable for understanding resource use, traditional management systems in place, and community relationships with their natural resources.
- Effective design is being achieved by using principles of ecosystem-based management and decision-support tools to zone the seven MPAs in Raja Ampat as a network, rather than on an individual MPA basis.
Funding summary
Blue Action Fund
Marisla Foundation
Acacia Foundation
Blue Abadi Fund
Walton Family Foundation
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation – Science Program
Private donors
Lead organizations
Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara (TNC’s Partner)
Partners
Conservation International
WWF Indonesia
Raja Ampat Government
West Papua Provinces
Papua University
Resources
Herbivorous reef fishes critical for long-term coral reef health and resilience
Reef fishes of the Bird’s Head Peninsula, West Papua, Indonesia
Assessing coral resilience and bleaching impacts in the Indonesian archipelago
Designing marine protected area networks to address the impacts of climate change