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Through a Green Lens: The Construction of Customary Environmental Law and Community in Indonesia's Maluku Islands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Charles Zerner
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In the Maluku Islands of Eastern Indonesia, a center of global diversity in coral reef systems and the historic center of trade in cloves and other spices, tenure practices known as sasi have flourished for at least a century. This article analyzes changes in the ways Dutch colonial officials, Indonesian government officials, and environmental NGOs have interpreted Moluccan customary law and local institutions. Dutch colonial accounts of sasi, a generic name for a historic family of institutions, laws, and ritual practices that regulated access to fields, reefs, and rivers, suggest that sasi was a synthetic, highly variable body of practices linked to religious beliefs and local cultural ideas of nature. During the past two decades, as international and national conservation discourses have proliferated and a movement has developed to support indigenous Indonesian cultural communities, Indonesian NGOs and the Ministry of the Environment have promoted, and largely created, images of sasi as an environmental institution and body of customary law promoting sustainable development, conservation, and social equity. This article focuses on how sasi has been continuously reinterpreted by a variety of actors, following the trajectory of changing institutional interests and images.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 28 , Issue 5: Symposium: Community and Identity in Sociolegal Studies , 1994 , pp. 1079 - 1122
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 by The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

This essay is based on fieldwork conducted in the Moluccas during July 1994, as well as two months' field research there during 1991, sponsored by the Fisheries Research and Development Project of the Central Fisheries Research Institute and supported by the United States Agency for International Development. Archival research was conducted during my tenure at the Woodrow Wilson Center (1991-92) and the Rainforest Alliance. Support for preparation of this manuscript was provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation (1994), the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Asia Program 1991-92), the Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg Foundation, and The Rainforest Alliance. Many people and organizations contributed to my understanding of sasi. I acknowledge the assistance of Carla Sapsford and Henry Heuveling van Beek in translating several Dutch language texts; Hasmi Bandjar, my colleague during field research; Francis Gouda's scholarly insights on the Dutch colonial law enterprise; and James Collins's linguistic assistance. I also acknowledge productive discussions with Iwan Tjitradjaja (University of Indonesia), Cliff Marlessy, Meentze Simatauw, and Kalvein Khuouw (HUALOPU), Sandra Moniaga and Suraya Affif (Indonesian Environmental Forum), Martha Belcher, and the Environmental Studies Center of the University of Pattimura and the Institute for Fisheries Research. The fishermen, local government leaders, and kewang of Saparua, Halmahera, Hatta, Ai, and Ran islands made this intellectual journey possible. Peter Riggs offered enthusiasm and material support for my recent research. Special thanks to Toby Alice Volkman, whose insights and careful comments inform this work. All the usual disclaimers apply. An earlier version was presented at a panel on "Comparing State Policy and Local Resource Tenure across Asia" at the Association of Asian Studies meeting, 25--27 March 1994, Boston.

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