Journal of Coastal Zone Management

Abstract

The Prospect of Co-Management in Managing Open Water and Estuaries Resources with Special Reference to Indonesia: A Lesson Learned

Indah Susilowati

Indonesia is a maritime country, composed about 17,500 islands. It has a great endeavor of open water
resources such as river, lake, dam, pond, swamp, etc. which are spread over the country. Multi-tribes and –
races are attributed to its habits, tradition, and culture of the communities lived. Given such large territory,
especially Indonesia is formed of thousands island, it will be costly to set a formal enforcement and
surveillance in securing the open-access resources (like fisheries, water, etc). Fortunately, each community
has an indigenous or traditional system to manage the resources. For example: Ikan Larangan (in West
Sumatra), sasi (in Maluku), Subak (in Bali), Sedekah Laut (in Java) and so on (Susilowati, 1996; 1999).
Rather than waiting a complete formal resource management (and need to be set up by the government) and
do not know when will be effectively apply, thus it will be more reasonable and timely to revive the
traditional system of resource management belongs to the respective community. In short, community
involvement in resource management is urgently encouraged, particularly in developing country with
limited budget like Indonesia. This paper is attempt to compile an experienced of Co-management approach
to manage the open water resource done by Susilowati (1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007). An institutional
analysis (Pomeroy and William, 1994) and Pinkerton (1989) with necessary modification were applied to
the respective studies. The results indicated that there is a fairly prospect to empower the competent
stakeholders (community, government, private, independent parties) to be involved in managing the openaccess
resources. However, all parties need to be encouraged for a high intention in participation,
commitment and somehow to create their sense of belonging to advocate the resource management. It is
easy to say but hardly to be materialized all the things for Indonesian context, except the leaders (formal and
informal) in the respective region are really committed to conserve the resource