licensing etc. In addition, to ensure a place in negotiating access and withdrawal rights for
artisanal fishers in offshore waters, local institutions will need to engage or be nested in a larger
institution operating on regional, provincial and higher levels. Presently, there is no identifiable
lead agency dedicated to coastal and fisheries management in Maluku. It is necessary to define
the sasi structures, powers and responsibilities within the framework of provincial and national
legislation, to provide local institutions with more capacity to deal with external threats and
become involved in development planning, execution and evaluation.
According to the pattern of loss of the institution, the 1990s appear to be a critical decade, i.e.,
sasi must adapt to modern society and gain formal legal status or it may, at the operational
level, cease to function. There are various options for providing a legal basis for local
management bodies, including decrees by the provincial governor, the district head or the
sub-district head, and promulgation of a provincial law. Another option, previously discussed
by Bailey and Zerner (1992), is through the amendment of the national Fisheries Act No. 9,
1985, together with amendment of Law No. 5, 1979 on the local government.
Fisheries co-management can be defined as a partnership arrangement in which the
government, the community of local resource users, external change agents, and other fisheries
and coastal resource stakeholders share the responsibility and authority for the management
of the fishery. Co-management involves various degrees of delegation of management
responsibility and authority between the local level (resource user/community) and the state
level (national, provincial and municipal governments). It can serve as a mechanism for both
fisheries management and for community economic development by promoting the
participation of fishers and community members in solving management problems and in
addressing other needs. In Maluku, the sasi institution provides a useful model and basis for
the development of modern institutions that could be integrated with provincial and national
agencies in fisheries co-management.
The report is divided into five sections. After the introduction and the methodology chapters
(Section A), Section B describes the general regional context of Maluku, e.g., the socio-political
background, biological aspects, and the development of sasi through time. Market structures
and the role of the government in fisheries management are also discussed in this section.
Section C presents the research results of the inventory and the performance study. Section D
goes more in-depth with a presentation of the six case study villages and a comparative
analysis. Finally, Section E answers the question - what makes sasi a resilient management
institution? The last chapter in this section summarizes the results and concludes with policy
recommendations for the acknowledgment or revitalization of sasi and the development of
co-management systems in central Maluku.
Introduction 11