Two research teams investigating ways to promote sustainable behaviours in coastal communities made a scoping visit to Selayar, Indonesia, during September.
The scientists from The University of Queensland (UQ), the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and Bogor Agricultural University (IPB-Bogor) met with community leaders at several villages.
Following this visit,the teams will select sites to study factors which change the way local people live and work with, and enjoy, coastal ecosystems including the fisheries and coral reefs.
One team, representing a partnership between UQ and IPB-Bogor is analysing the needs, values, levers and drivers for fostering behaviour change among individuals and households.
Once these factors are analysed, the team, comprising Erik Simmons from UQ and Dr Eva Anggraini, Dr Yudi Wahyudin and Dr Arsyad Al Amin from IPB-Bogor, will co-design and pilot-test an intervention (based on the principles of UQ’s Positive Parenting Program – Triple P) to change a behaviour in local communities. The objective of the intervention is to reduce the risk factors causing individuals to damage marine ecosystems, while enhancing the factors that lead to protection of these ecosystems.
The second team, a partnership between UQ and LIPI, is developing a conceptual and procedural guide to adaptive coastal governance and management for use by leaders and institutions.
This team, comprising Professor Helen Ross from UQ and Dr Dedhi Adhuri and Pak Ali Yansyah Abdurrahim from LIPI, seeks to understand the dynamics of change-making in coastal social-ecological systems and, as a result, develop a governance toolkit to assist change-makers in governments, communities and NGOs to foster sustainable marine resource use and livelihoods, across multiple levels of formal and customary governance, in Indonesia.
Field work by the first of these two teams starts during November. Preliminary results from both investigations will be shared at a Stakeholder Forum in Indonesia, in mid-2017.