Talise Island: A lesson in stakeholders and sustainability

By Lisa Rogers

JAKARTA (JP): There are plenty of buzzwords in the development world, few more potent than "stakeholders" and "sustainability". At its island site in North Sulawesi, Proyek Pesisir learned firsthand how hard it is to reach the second until you have the first.

There is no shortage of pressing environmental issues facing the island of Talise, a long boat ride around the tip of North Sulawesi from Manado: deforestation in the hills threatens the freshwater aquifers and disappearing mangroves on the shore means fewer fish and widespread beach erosion. Commercial interests from outside the community have harvested the village's land and marine resources for years but returned little to the people who live there.

Surely, thought the coastal management specialists of Proyek Pesisir, here is a location ripe for environmental development's best efforts.

Proyek Pesisir was set up in 1997 as a cooperative venture between the U.S. Agency for International Development and the government of Indonesia. It works at both local and national levels to decentralize and strengthen natural resources management.

So, in 1997 Proyek Pesisir went to Talise. Its 2,000 residents live on the eastern half of the 6km by 2km island. Meetings with local people were arranged, but the project ran into the worst possible problem -- lack of interest. It wasn't that the residents did not know about the environmental problems. Just the opposite, in fact.

And they had plenty of ideas about how to fix them. The project team quickly discovered the roadblock: in development jargon, Talise's residents were not "stakeholders". They didn't own the land they lived on, so they were unwilling to invest their time and effort in a something that might be taken from them at any time. Without the cooperation and commitment of the residents, there would not be much "sustainability" in the project's efforts.

It all goes back to Talise's unusual social history. In the years after the New Order government came to power, suspected communist sympathizers were rounded up all across Indonesia. Some from Minahasa and the Sangir islands of North Sulawesi found themselves exiled to Talise, where they were forced to resettle, landless and friendless.

Lucrative permit

Here they lived with that most powerful of absentee landlords -- the government. Even the village head was appointed from outside by the regent. Businesses from outside the community and even outside the country received lucrative permits from the New Order government to use the area's resources. Talise residents lived their lives in an official world that cared little about their needs, let alone their opinions.

A chance to improve the situation appeared in 1994 with the government's policy to award land ownership certificates to qualified residents around the country. The process was not easy or cheap.

The fee was Rp 150,000, about US$60 at that time. Despite the high cost, more than 200 Talise residents filled in their forms, paid their fees, and waited for their land certificates.

Unfortunately, all but 47 families waited in vain. The rest of the money disappeared and the applications lapsed after a year. The political upheavals of the past had left them without their land titles, without their money, and without local and regional officials willing to look into their claims.

The debacle still rankled in 1997 when Proyek Pesisir team members first came to Talise to help with its environmental problems. Instead of a community ready to tackle the issues together, the team found disinterested tenants who believed their landlord stole their money.

"At first people were still angry about the loss," explained J. Johannes Tulungen, Proyek Pesisir's field program manager for North Sulawesi. But early in 1998 the regent replaced the old village head.

"Then we made some progress. I said to the community, 'Just forget about the past. We must start from the beginning.' At first they didn't believe we could do it. They were afraid their money would be lost again."

To overcome this roadblock, Tulungen and his team engaged in some creative negotiations with government officials at local and regional levels, and particularly at the land office in Tondano, where most of the land title work is done. "Instead of hiring consultants to manage the application process, we saved a lot of money by doing business directly with the land office."

The project team also convinced land office officials that several steps in the usual year-long process could be foreshortened or even eliminated. For example, because the undisputed landowner was the government, there was no need to spend time and money looking for other owners. A new attitude at local and district levels moved the process along at record speed.

As a way to help Talise families reapply for their certificates, the project agreed to assist with the application fees for the first 200 square meters of land (Rp 117,000, about US$14.50), enough for a house and garden. The families agreed to pay the administrative costs and fees for plots larger than 200 square meters.

The average payment per family was Rp 75,000 (about US$9.50). Once everyone agreed on the process in September 1999, things went smoothly.

By early December the land titles were ready. On Dec. 16, the new minister for marine exploration and fisheries, Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, came to Talise with some of the local government officials who had supported the process to hand-deliver the 220 land certificates. Now nearly all the families in Talise own their own property.

Dramatic changes

The landowners' new status has sparked some dramatic changes in levels of civic participation. Now that they control their own property, Talise residents are much more involved in the long term planning and management of their village and its surroundings. They understand the problems they face and they are actively searching for solutions.

Among the most pressing terrestrial issues on Talise is protecting the drinking water supply. The village's freshwater aquifer depends entirely on the health of the forests in the watershed above it.

Although the government owns this common land, villagers know that the government lacks the resources to protect it. Over time, people have moved into the area, unwisely cutting trees and opening up the forest. Now the watershed suffers from erosion and the plague of alang-alang grass, which inhibits the natural regrowth of trees.

At the water's edge, Talise residents are worried about some of the same problems faced by many coastal communities around Indonesia: the disappearance of mangroves, eroding beaches, damaged corals and declining fish stocks.

Now that they have a long-term interest in their surroundings, Talise residents are not waiting for the government or outside money to fix their problems. The village has set up its own environmental management committee to find local solutions backed by the local community.

It is already discouraging people from going into the forests to cut trees. As part of an aggressive regreening project, residents are working with a Proyek Pesisir agroforestry team to learn how to collect seeds locally and raise seedlings themselves to replant critical land.

Other environmental rehabilitation activities around the island include replanting mangroves to slow beach erosion and establishing a marine reserve to protect coral reefs. Both will also help boost the area's fish stocks, which provide Talise's residents with food and income. In the future, the conservation efforts may bring tourists, too.

As it usually does, success brings imitation. With the help of Proyek Pesisir specialists, residents of nearby Kinabuhutan island are now busy replanting mangroves to stabilize their beaches.

They know that the land office will view their title applications more favorably if their properties are not likely to wash away in a storm. And Talise villagers may themselves copy the marine sanctuary success of Blongko village farther west along the coast from Manado, where residents have documented an increase in their fish stocks in just a year.

Even the toughest problems are getting more attention now. Talise residents are working to resolve the long-standing issue of access to some of the best fishing areas on the leeward side of their island. These areas are off-limits to fishermen now because the New Order government granted exclusive access to an internationally owned pearl farm. Talise's residents know that if some of the better fishing sites are reopened, pressure will ease on the rest of the island's limited land and sea resources. By working together toward such changes, Talise residents make the goal of environmental sustainability much easier to reach.