SASI & Traditional Conservation Efforts

Conservation in Raja Ampat can be daunting at times, especially when watching the uncontrolled rate of coastal development here and the lack of garbage management.  There are also some great examples of how communities in Raja Ampat are starting to take the initiative to protect their own resources, however... and there are some amazing traditional resource management practices that have been in place for generations that are gaining more strength as the threats against those resources increase.

Sasi is a traditional resource management system used by the coastal clans in Papua to impose temporal and/or spacial and/or species-specific closures on resources, be it land- or marine.  It is based on the traditional tenural holdings of the clans native to Raja Ampat (here, they actually own their reefs).  The closures might be for a certain reef, a certain stand of coconut trees, a certain species of crab, or anything else, and they could last from a few weeks to years.  Sasi fell out of use to some extent until fairly recently, so probably a lot of the local, traditional knowledge about how it should be implemented, natural populations, etc, has been lost.


Sasi is now implemented by the church.  No one disobeys a sasi in effect... they believe that they will be struck down by the Lord and go to hell if they do.  There don't even exist any official sanctions for infractions on the sasi - God's punishment is enough to scare anyone out of attempting to disobey it, it seems.

The similarity between sasi and modern models of resource management for conservation is uncanny.  And this similarity has been capitalized upon by conservation organizations working toward the development of a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Raja Ampat.  Community-based and community-driven, community-managed, I have the confidence that these MPAs will be much more effective than most!

Within the MPAs that have already been declared, several communities have already declared no take zones, and are ALSO continuing to use the traditional SASI method to impose temporal closures for fisheries management.

Another local conservation initiative can be seen in an example from the bird tourism spots, especially the one on Gam Island.  The villagers on Gam used to hunt the Bird of Paradise to sell (at maximum one hundred dollars per bird) - now they are protecting them and selling tours to foreigners as a more sustainable livlihood.  The same thing has happened with the Mantas in Arborek Island, where communities no longer hunt the mantas for food because they have recognized the tourism value as greater.  The inherent ecological value even more-so - these birds are endemic to the area!

*Underwater photos above by SSV