An institutional analysis of sasi laut in Maluku, Indonesia

adat leaders, enhances its own positive image as a useful, practical player interested in
improving the community well-being through sasi.

Social approbation

The enhanced status granted to kewang members is clearly an incentive for them to continue
to volunteer their time to management tasks. Along with this, these men also have a sense of
responsibility rooted in adat. Whether this will continue to be an incentive for the next
generation is a topic of discussion among current traditional authorities. Only in Haruku has
the kewang taken positive steps to groom village youth for taking their place in the institution
by devising a youth kewang group.

Flexibility and local adaptation

“Sasi is not a collection of rigid adat regulations. It will continue to be dynamic, responsive to
the changing times, as long as its spirit, soul or life is maintained and does not change” (Kissya,
1994). The fact that sasi rules are developed locally is an incentive for local fishers to support
sasi compared to an institution controlled from some distant urban center. In every village,
the rules are different. In some cases, respect for adat or traditional mores, is very strong; in
other cases, it is the church or the village government that plays a leading role. Resources
subject to kewang rules or seasonal closures may be harvested by individual fishers living in
the community (e.g., Ihamahu), by the whole community in a single communal harvest (e.g.,
Haruku), or by individuals from within or outside the community who have paid for the
privilege of access and withdrawal (e.g., Nolloth, Pelauw, Kabauw). Different species are
regulated in different villages, depending on the available resources, market price and fishers’
preferences. Sasi has the potential to provide management that is closely tailored to local
needs and priorities.

The negative side to this flexibility is that there is no common minimum standard of resource
management nor any recognized standard of conservation associated with management rules.
In some cases even where there is sasi, management is virtually absent. Sasi rules may or may
not be written down and the kewang and other players may be active or dormant. In Seram,
for instance, we found a nominal form of sasi under which the closed area applied only to
outsiders, while local residents had unlimited access to the resource.

Clarity of objectives

The diversity of sasi as applied in Maluku is at once its strength and a weakness. When
asked, people can rarely elucidate any coherent or compelling reason for supporting sasi.
Sasi simply “is”, and “sasi is good”. There are no clearly defined and widely recognized
resource conservation and management function that are directly related to identified needs.
Thus, sasi as an institution is unlikely to mobilize strong support for resource management or
conservation in the face of, for example, economic distress or political chaos. In other words,
it is easy to generate lip service to sasi’s cultural value but more difficult to stimulate active
participation, because people lack a strong shared vision of sasi as a relevant and action-
oriented institution.

Social benefits

Sasi is generally perceived to be useful and beneficial, even in villages that no longer have the
institution. Fishers in sasi villages perceive benefits in terms of higher levels of cooperation

Overall Discussion and Conclusions 267

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