Leadership, Social Capital and Coastal Community Resource Governance: the Case of the Destructive Seaweed Harvest in West Bali.

Carol Warren

doi:10.1007/s10745-016-9832-y

Abstract

This paper concerns resource governance in a remote Balinese coastal community, which faces severe environmental challenges due to overexploitation and habitat destruction. It explores some of the issues raised in ‘social capital’ debates regarding leadership and public participation toward sustainable natural resource governance. Given the strength of Balinese customary law and the high degree of participation required in the ritual-social domain, Bali represents a model context for examining these issues. Through a case study of destructive resource exploitation and evolving rules-in-use, this paper analyses the ambiguous role of ‘bonding’ social capital and the complexities of negotiating collective action on environmental problems where conflicting interests and dense social ties make local action difficult. The paper finds that a more complex appreciation of vertical (authority) and horizontal (solidarity) relationships between leaders and ordinary villagers is required, and that a more nuanced institutional bricolage and exploratory scenario approach to analysis of evolving rules in use would enhance associated policy interventions.

Highlights

Assumptions of the social capital thesis, that shared values and dense associational ties contribute to good governance, are
The problems of community participation, leadership and the negotiation of horizontal and vertical structures through conservation interventions becomes an important consideration in establishing the legitimacy and the long-term effectiveness of sustainable co-management regimes (Bené et al 2009; Guitierrez et al 2011)
Given the strength of Balinese customary law, and the high degree of participation traditionally required in the ritualsocial domain, Bali represents an ideal-typic case for examining questions central to the adaptation and extension of customary governance practices to contemporary communitybased resource management (Warren 1993, 2005)

Summary

Introduction

Assumptions of the social capital thesis, that shared values and dense associational ties contribute to good governance, are. In Indonesia considerable attention has been given to customary (adat) governance mechanisms and resource management practices that suggested possibilities for building networks of locally managed sustainable fisheries (Thorburn 2000; McLeod et al 2009) These offered the prospect of linking local protected no-take areas and restricted harvesting zones to wider marine protected area networks in which locally managed resource use could be negotiated to take account of customary rights and practices as well as livelihood needs. Critical perspectives on this customary governance approach revolved around the complexity of community structures and failure to recognize how internal inequalities complicate these conservation approaches (Bailey and Zerner 1992; Pannell 1997; Brosius et al 2005; Afiff and Lowe 2008; Davis and Ruddle 2012). Framework, leadership – exercised by elites as well as ordinary villagers, insiders as well as outsiders, in formal as well as informal contexts – engages vertical and horizontal agencies in a more polycentric, open-ended and ongoing negotiation process toward improved resource governance

Bali Coastal Community Case Study

Findings

Conservation Scenarios