Can communities manage their own resources?

Posted by: Robecca Jumin

Saturday, 8th August 2009. In the past two days, we hosted a visit from the newly created Environment and Conservation Unit of the Sabah Fisheries Department. We felt very privileged to host the visit of the full team of the unit that also happen to handle the SSME Tri-National Programme in Sabah, of which our project is closely affiliated. On the first day, bad weather threatened to completely ruin our plan to bring our guests to the many places within the proposed Tun Mustapha Park (TMP) that we thought would be a ‘must visit site’. But ‘good’ weather prevailed - the rain stopped and the wind subsided enough to allow us to visit at least two of the 4 sites we planned to visit. The visit to Kg. Berungus, Pitas and Karakit, Banggi was worth the rough boat ride across Banggi Channel and the perilous short cross over a fishing vessel and fish cages to get to dry land in lieu of a proper jetty. The discussions the next day was equally rewarding and enlightening for us in the WWF team.
Dr. Norasma and team from the Sabah Fisheries Department visiting Kg. Berungus, Pitas, with WWF-Malaysia Team

This visit reminded me of one of the questions that we have in our early days when we started our project in 2006. One of them was “Can communities manage their own resources?”. This question probably came up when our small team of only 4 staff at that time were given the task of building community support for the proposed Tun Mustapha Park which stand at a proposed area of 1.02 million hectares with more than 80,000 people living within and around the area. It is such a huge area; managing it would be a daunting task and some people we had met had expressed doubts that it can be managed effectively as a Park.

But then TMP would be a different Park compared to its predecessors. TMP will probably fall under the IUCN Category VI park meant for sustainable resource management. It will involve zoning of areas for many different uses - including fisheries management and protection of biodiversity, and resource users are able to participate in resource management through the practice of collaborative management. Hence the question “Can communities manage their own resources?”.

We were quite optimistic then that there are communities out there in TMP that will be able to positively response to this question. We started responding to this question by rapidly assessing if there are examples within Malaysia where coastal communities participate in resource management, that we could learn from. Sure enough, we get to know about the proactive Penang Inshore Fishermen Welfare Association (PIFWA). Learning from PIFWA would be a good starting point for our community engagement to advocate greater participation in resource management. We conducted a quick and rapid assessment of our previous engagement and identified candidates to bring, visit and learn from PIFWA. Since our hope is for our candidates to bring back the knowledge they have learned from the visit and share with their communities respectively, we have selected our candidates based on their position in their community, leadership and to some extent their communication skill.

We finally selected 4 candidates from TMP representing our self-created sub-regions of Kudat, Kota Marudu, Pitas and Banggi - Mr. Johny Wong, Pakcik Musana, Mr. Sabran Mohammed and Mr. Zaman Bayang representing Kudat, Banggi, Pitas and Kota Marudu sub-regions respectively.

Fast forward to today, August 2009, 3 years onwards.

Mr. Johny Wong has established a group called Persatuan Pemilik Kapal Nelayan Kudat (PPKNK) and is now the secretary of this group. Members of PPKNK had participated in the stakeholder consultations for TMP to identify important fishing ground, issues and recommendations for better management of commercial fishing in TMP. PPKNK advocate control of fishing effort in TMP to address overfishing, keen to learn new technologies that can help them practice sustainable fisheries and reduce by-catch and is willing to participate in discussions and management of TMP.

Members of PPKNK participating in discussions on TMP

Members of PPKNK discovering SCUBA to appreciate the underwater world and benefits of MPA

Pakcik Musana was instrumental in the initiation of work towards the establishment of Maliangin Sanctuary as a pilot site to demonstrate the benefits of marine protected area - socio-economic through establishment of alternative livelihoods, increase fish catch through spill-over effect of no-take zone, improved biodiversity and the implementation of the concept of collaborative management. Warmly welcoming us into his community, we were able to work with his Community to establish Maliangin Sanctuary. Boundary for Maliangin Sanctuary is now being identified and a Maliangin Committee is being formalized with the Registrar of Society (RoS) to help in the formation of Maliangin Sanctuary. Simultaneously, alternative livelihood is also being identified and piloted for implementation.

(Maliangin Sanctuary: http://www.wwf.org.my/about_wwf/what_we_do/marine_main/marine_ecoregions/ecoregions_sulu_sulawesi_marine_ecoregion/sulu_kudat_banggi_prority_area/kudat_progress_and_updates/?7180)

Aerial view of Maliangin Sanctuary


Beautiful beach on Maliangin Besar

Potential alternative livelihood on Maliangin Sanctuary

Maliangin committee in the making - En. Abd. Aziz chairing the Maliangin Community Meeting.

Both Sabran and Zaman continues to be engaged in resource management within their respective capacity. Sabran and Zaman facilitated in the community surveys conducted by WWF-Malaysia and Sabah Parks from 2006-2007, to gather local knowledge on biodiversity and resource use pattern, as well as socio-economic information. In 2008, Zaman was appointed as an Honorary Wildlife Warden (HWW) under the Sabah Wildlife Enactment, enabling him to carry out enforcement of regulations pertaining to wildlife protection regulations. Passing on the torch to the younger generations, Sabran chose to send two members of his community to be trained in wildlife enforcement. His village now boasts two of his members as Honorary Wildlife Wardens.

Newly appointed Honorary Wildlife Wardens from Kudat, Kota Marudu, Pitas and Banggi

Honorary Wildlife Wardens being trained in the use of Global Positioning System (GPS)

As we continue engaging the communities of TMP, communities proactive in resource management emerged. Kg. Berungusis one of them. We visited Kg. Berungus in Pitas in February 2007 as one of the site surveyed during our community survey. There we found out that when it come to participation in resource management, Kg. Berungus is far ahead. The Pengerusi JKKK, Encik Abdul Karim is strong in his commitment to prevent cyanide fishing and fish bombing from happening in his village. He is assited by Encik Jamili who is equally committed, and youth of Kg. Berungus, strong supporters of their elders. This commitment came from their awareness that these destructive fishing practices is destroying the very resources that their livelihood is dependent on. Being former practitioners, they knew and understand the impact of the practice and are very effective in protecting their resources.

Beautiful beach of Kg. Berungus, Pitas

View of the sea from Kg. Berungus

Encik Abdul Karim conductinng monitoring with his son, Kamaruddin.

Kamaruddin from Kg. Berungus receiving a digital camera, binocular and GPS from Dr. Rahimatsah, Chief Technical Officer of WWF-Malaysia. Dr. Rahim is also an Honorary Wildlife Warden.

Picture of the cyanide fisher and the squirter containing cyanide poison used in cyanide fishing.

Author joined En. Abdul Karim and son, Kamaruddin monitoring fishers activities around their village.

Communities in Kg. Berungus, Pitas and Maliangin Sanctuary certainly shows that communities can manage their own resources given the opportunities and proper support. This give much hope for the management and conservation of TMP.