Redefining Conservation in Karimata: A Model for Community-Led Marine Governance
By Lia Syafitri, Arif Darmawan, Aurore Maxey, and Rodiansyah
Conservation thrives with people, not in spite of them
On a quiet shoreline in the Karimata Islands, turtle tracks crisscross the sand, some real, others carefully crafted by the hands of local monitors. These hand-drawn decoys, made to mislead poachers, reveal something deeper than surface-level conservation. They tell a story of a community that no longer watches from the sidelines but instead leads the effort to protect its land and sea.
Karimata’s coastline, where communities and coastal ecosystems are closely connected.
Karimata is often recognized for its rich biodiversity: coral reefs, migratory birds, sea turtles, and fisheries that sustain generations. But beyond the ecosystem, it’s the people who make this landscape extraordinary. Some have made difficult choices, harvesting turtles or fishing in restricted zones, not out of disregard for nature, but as a means of survival in a system that has long excluded them. This is not a story about removing human presence to save nature. It’s about redefining who conservation is for and who holds the authority to shape it.
The Reality in Karimata: People Live Where the Law Says They Shouldn’t
Generations have lived on Karimata’s coast, often in areas now considered part of the marine reserve.
Karimata is legally designated as a marine nature reserve, a zone where permanent settlement is not permitted. On paper, these areas are meant to remain untouched by humans. Yet in practice, generations have lived here. Their connection to the land and sea predates the conservation laws that now govern the region. Families pass down deep ecological knowledge, manage seasonal fishing practices, and maintain cultural traditions tied to the rhythms of the ocean.
This legal-reality gap creates a governance contradiction, where formal conservation policies don’t fully reflect the realities of lived community presence. If laws are enforced without considering these lived realities, they risk erasing not just livelihoods but centuries of place-based stewardship. The question is not how to remove people, but how to recognize them as the ecosystem’s longest-standing protectors, an approach now being formalized through a Conservation Partnership (kemitraan konservasi) between communities, government, and supporting institutions.
A Different Path: Strengthening Communities Instead of Removing Them
Planet Indonesia supports communities to co-create governance structures that center local leadership and long-term stewardship. In Karimata, this means finding new ways to balance conservation regulations with community rights, through co-developed solutions with communities and government partners.
In many rural and coastal areas, decision-making power exists at the central level, often excluding local perspectives. To counter this, Planet Indonesia collaborates with communities to either strengthen existing governance structures or support the creation of new, community-led governance bodies that reflect the realities and voices of those most affected.
We currently work with five community-led governance bodies, locally known as PUMKs, which are responsible for managing conservation and development activities at the village level. These governance bodies don’t operate in isolation. They are part of an evolving governance network embedded in the broader kemitraan konservasi, designed to reconcile rights and resolve conflict. Together, these mechanisms allow communities to take part in decision-making processes on conservation, resource management, and social well-being, while advancing more inclusive governance in protected areas.
A local community member records ecological data, part of ongoing efforts to involve residents directly in conservation decision-making.
Unlike conventional conservation models that rely on top-down enforcement, this approach supports communities to lead, define conservation priorities, manage resources directly, and make decisions that align with local knowledge and needs.
From Complexity to Structure: Why the Four Pillars Matter
The approach in Karimata isn’t accidental. It reflects years of learning, listening, and adapting to the unique challenges of governing a protected area where communities have long resided. From that process, a clear pattern emerged: short-term projects or isolated enforcement would never be enough.
What emerged was the need for a system, a model that could address the root causes of biodiversity loss by strengthening the connection between people, place, and governance.
Planet Indonesia’s model is grounded in systems thinking. It focuses not just on symptoms but on the underlying drivers of biodiversity loss. It rests on four interconnected pillars:
1. Rights and Access:
In many conservation contexts, local people are consulted in planning, but often lack meaningful decision-making power over the landscapes they rely on. For the people living in Karimata, securing rights and access is even more critical due to the area’s legal designation as a marine reserve. Settlement is technically prohibited, even though communities have inhabited the islands for generations.
To navigate this legal framework, Planet Indonesia works with communities and government agencies to co-develop a conservation partnership (kemitraan konservasi). This collaborative framework allows for shared management of conservation areas while recognizing historical presence and community needs. It aims to reconcile local rights, particularly around livelihoods and marine resource access, with formal conservation goals. By promoting inclusive, rights-based governance, this partnership creates a pathway toward long-term stewardship that is both socially just and ecologically effective.
2. Participatory Management:
A community-based monitor checks a nesting turtle during routine patrols in Karimata.
Communities lead the monitoring and management of critical areas, from turtle nesting beaches to seasonal fishing zones. They conduct patrols, track ecological data, and help prevent destructive practices. Management here is not about strict control; it’s about informed, adaptive stewardship. By involving community members as both data collectors and decision-makers, the model builds ecological literacy and trust, key ingredients for sustainable resource use.
3. Inclusive Governance:
Community-led governance bodies connect directly with village and district-level decision-makers to ensure that conservation is not isolated from local environmental management and development planning. Governance in this model is horizontal, inclusive, and rooted in social trust. It creates space for dialogue among stakeholders who might otherwise be in conflict, bridging customary, administrative, and ecological perspectives in one shared platform.
4. Regenerative Livelihoods: Regeneration is both ecological and social. Health programs, savings groups, and literacy initiatives are essential to ecosystem recovery. When communities are healthy and resilient, they are better positioned to protect the environment they rely on. In Karimata, community members continue to run savings and loan programs through their PUMKs, building economic resilience while prioritizing the sustainability of the natural ecosystems that support their livelihoods. With support from Planet Indonesia, free health services have also been made available in partnership with local clinics and village governments. More than 100 residents have accessed treatment, and community health outreach has expanded through education sessions and trained health cadres, especially women, who now support household-level health promotion.
This pillar recognizes that conservation doesn’t happen in a vacuum; people must have the tools, time, and capacity to care for the ecosystems.
The four pillars strengthen each other, building a system that is both resilient and adaptive.
From Turtle Track to Shared Stewardship
Conservation in Karimata is not static. As ecological, economic, and political conditions shift, so do strategies. A key part of this model is continuous reflection and adaptation to new challenges.
Communities use participatory tools to evaluate impact: Are patrols reducing illegal activity? Are savings groups meeting household needs? Are decision-making structures inclusive and fair?
The image of a turtle track in the sand is still powerful, but here, it now marks more than the path of a nesting turtle. It reflects the hands of the people who protect it: those who guard nesting sites, craft decoy tracks to mislead poachers, and safeguard the life that returns to their shores.
This image speaks to how conservation evolves when trust is placed in those with the deepest relationship to the landscape. It’s where ecological knowledge, legal complexity, and community voice intersect. Conservation in Karimata isn’t just about saving turtles; it’s about rewriting who gets to draw the line in the sand and who gets to protect what lies beyond it.
Hatchlings emerge on Karimata’s beaches, monitoring helps track their survival and protect key nesting sites.
Field teams document turtle tracks to assess nesting activity and inform marine conservation strategies.
A newly hatched turtle makes its way to the sea, conservation begins with community care at every step of the life cycle.
Looking ahead, Planet Indonesia is working with partners to strengthen conservation partnerships and multi-stakeholder agreements that bring together community-led governance bodies, government agencies, and NGOs. The goal is not to scale one rigid model but to demonstrate what’s possible when communities and ecosystems are treated as inseparable.
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