Developing sustainable small-scale fisheries livelihoods in Indonesia: Trends, enabling and constraining factors, and future opportunities

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) provide crucial contributions to livelihoods, food and nutrition security, and the well-being of coastal communities worldwide. In Indonesia, 2.5 million households are involved in SSF production, yet these households are characterised by high poverty rates and vulnerability due to declining ecosystem health and climatic change. In this study we applied the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework to analyse the characteristics and immediate and longer-term outcomes of 20 SSF livelihood-focused intervention programs implemented in coastal communities across the Indonesian Archipelago over the last two decades. Projects covered a wide range of spatial scales, funding providers and key participants. Factors supporting positive program outcomes included application of inclusive and holistic approaches to sustainable livelihoods, implemented and supported over appropriate time frames; use of participatory capacity development methodologies and locally-situated project facilitators; and collaborative engagement with local government, non-government organisations and private-sector actors. However, it was impossible to identify evidenced successes from a longer-term sustainability perspective. Short project timeframes, absence of baseline or monitoring data, pressure for satisfactory reports to donors, and limited post-project evaluation, together with invisibility of women’s work and non-commercial exchanges, affected the adequacy of assessments. Given the lack of post-project assessment among projects studied, a thorough review of longer-term project impacts is recommended, guided by the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, to evaluate sustained improvements in livelihoods outcomes and environmental sustainability. This would support best-practice design and implementation of SSF livelihood-focused interventions, disseminated beyond academia, to influence policy and development to achieve socio-economic equity and environmental goals

Transforming traditional management into contemporary territorial-based fisheries management rights for small-scale fisheries in Indonesia

Fisheries management rights (FMRs), such as territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs), are a promising approach for fisheries management that, if implemented on larger geographic scales, may be able to reduce the risk of fisheries decline, particularly for small-scale fisheries (SSF). SSF are significant throughout Asia, Africa and South America for millions of fishers and supporting the livelihoods of coastal communities. This research evaluates the potential of TURFs as a management tool in Indonesia and develops this into a concept of contemporary FMRs. In Indonesia, the adat communities, i.e. those communities where customary tenurial claims are still practiced, acknowledged under law and respected by migrant communities, have been able to implement TURFs. In Maluku and West Papua regions, TURFs (≈customary marine tenure or petuanan laut) are possible because tenure rights are recognized and confer the essential TURFs elements of exclusivity and security. We investigate the potential for scaling up TURFs by transforming petuanan laut that has enabled the successful implementation of sasi laut, a traditional measure to regulate the utilization of marine resources, into modern FMRs, especially for SSF. Elements of policy reform, the use of science-based fisheries management principles, and data-limited stock assessment methods to inform adaptive management are also considered. We discuss the adoption of FMRs into relevant law to allow the scaling up of TURFs throughout Indonesia. The FMRs are conceived as a privilege granted by government to an entity or group that comes with resource stewardship responsibilities and should be revocable if they are breached