Incorporating Local Wisdom Sasi into Marine Zoning to Increase the Resilience of a Marine Protected Area Network in Raja Ampat, Indonesia.

The Raja Ampat government and local communities established 6 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in 2007 to protect the unique marine biodiversity and ensure sustainable fisheries in West Papua, Indonesia. Increasing human populations resulting in overfishing and the use of destructive fishing practices are the main threats and challenges the region faces. Biophysical, socioeconomic and climate change criteria and factors were developed for zoning the Raja Ampat MPA network. Resilience principles such as replication, habitat representation, protection of critical habitat and connectivity were applied to the final zoning design. Reef resilience data using global monitoring protocols were collected to provide insights into the resilience of different reefs to further guide zoning. Resilience rankings showed that fishing pressure on reef fish communities especially on piscivores, herbivores and excavators was the main factor lowering resilience in MPAs. In addition data were collected on ‘sasi’ areas throughout the MPAs. Sasi is a type of traditional resource management practice used by local communities to open and close areas to fishing single or multiple fisheries species. Once the fishery recovers local communities then harvest the species for food or sale. Raja Ampat MPAs network managed as multi-objective zoning system. The current zoning system explicitly recognizes community sasi within Traditional Use Zones, which often are adjacent or close to No-Take Zones. The explicit inclusion of sasi areas within zoning plans for the MPAs will likely lead to good compliance by local communities, and the increase fish biomass. Improving the management of fisheries through the incorporation of traditional fisheries management will therefore increase the overall resilience of coral reefs in the Raja Ampat MPA network.