Indonesia’s coral crisis: How colonial legacies and neoliberal conservation stifle reef revival despite local-global knowledge fusion
Original framing: “Combining science and community knowledge could shape coral reef conservation in Indonesia” — Phys.org
Fisherwomen in *pangkep* systems report that ‘community meetings’ are held in *bahasa Indonesia* (a language many only learned in school), while traditional *basa Ugi* (Bugis language) terms for reef health (*‘mappangang’*) are excluded from surveys. A 2020 *Gender in Development* study found that 82% of reef management committees in Sulawesi exclude women, yet their *pangkep* labor accounts for 60% of reef regeneration. The study’s ‘limited readiness’ framing pathologizes communities while ignoring how colonial and neoliberal policies systematically disempowered them—from the 1930s *Heer 17* (Dutch military) land confiscations to the 2019 *Omnibus Law* that stripped coastal communities of *hak ulayat* (customary rights).
The Spermonde Archipelago’s reef crisis is not a failure of ‘community readiness’ but a symptom of *colonial continuity*—where Dutch land grabs, Suharto-era decentralization, and neoliberal conservation converge to disempower *pengelola* while extracting their knowledge as ‘data.
’ The study’s ‘integrated science’ model replicates this dynamic by framing *pangkep* as a ‘resource’ to be mined for Western validation, ignoring that these systems are already *hybrid*: blending lunar calendars, *basa Ugi* ecology, and adaptive trial-and-error. Solutions must begin with *hak ulayat* restoration, not ‘participation’—redirecting ‘blue carbon’ funds to *pangkep* networks while using *tongkonan* architecture to redesign reefs as living *kin*, not commodities. The trickster lesson here is that ‘bridging’ knowledge systems without dismantling power asymmetries is like singing to a coral while dynamiting its home—beautiful, but futile.