Talise Island: A lesson in stakeholders and sustainability
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.