EXPLORING SOCIAL RESILIENCE IN MARINE PROTECTED AREAS – A CASE OF INDONESIA‘S CORAL TRIANGLE

Abstract

The term ―resilience‖ has a very long and rich history. The term itself received a widespread attention since Holling‘s seminal paper in 1973 on system ecology. Since then, the term resilience has been widely used and defined in many academic disciplines. The examination of social resilience in the context of overall coastal community resilience has been developed during the last few years. Such studies have been important in determining factors influencing the acceptance of MPAs in resource dependent communities. The concept of social resilience has been defined mostly at the community level, and less so at the individual level. In order to fill the gap, this study is intended to measure social resilience at the individual level. The objective of this study is to explore resilience and its impact on Indonesian MPAs. It addresses the following research questions: (1) What is the degree of variability in individual resilience in Indonesia‘s Coral Triangle?, (2) Are there any relationships between degree of individual resilience and other social characteristics of a community?, (3) Are there any relationships between degree of individual resilience and a community‘ economic characteristics? (4) Are there any relationships between degree of individual resilience and community members‘ environmental attitudes beliefs and values?, and (5) How does community perception of MPA management influence their degree of individual resilience? This study has discovered some important aspects of social resiliency and it‘s relation to some aspects of MPAs. First, the social resilience of resource dependent individuals in Indonesia could be best explained by five components, which are: adaptive capacity, risk awareness, perceived social-economic status, community attachment and environmental awareness. Second, this study suggests that MPAs have some degree of influence on the level of individual social resilience. Several resource users‘ individual attributes, such as age, years of education and gender are related to their level of social resilience. Resource user‘s perceptions of some aspects of MPA planning and management processes were also found related to their social resilience. Finally, this study provides a basis for further in depth research of social resilience of resource dependent communities, specifically in the Indonesian context.