This report provides an analysis of the governance and tenure dimensions of managing coastal mangrove forests in Indonesia. It is part of a broader study that includes a global review and a national-level study of mangrove governance and tenure in Tanzania focusing on the Rufiji delta. The report analyzes national-level legal and institutional frameworks to provide an indication of how different sectoral regulations address mangrove governance and tenure and how varied government authorities implement them. In addition, the report analyzes mangrove management in practice, especially governance and institutional arrangements at the local level, to better understand how these arrangements function and ultimately how they influence mangrove resources. We highlight the experiences of three villages in Lampung province, which gives us rich insight into the local-level dynamics of mangrove management within different types of tenure arrangements over mangrove forests.
This assessment report draws from multiple sources, including a review of relevant published literature; a review of up to 21 national policies and regulations; focus group discussions (FGDs) with communities; and interviews with government officials and NGO representatives at national, provincial, and district levels working on mangrove governance. Field data was collected in three communities in Lampung Province. Lampung has a relatively large coverage of mangrove forests, diverse mangrove tenure and management regimes, recent mangrove rehabilitation initiatives, and established CIFOR project sites, which include research sites of the mangrove-focused Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP). Mangrove forests in Lampung fall under at least five different tenure and management regimes, including strict national park, de facto community-governed territory, state forest zones under the central government’s ownership, areas under local government management, and large-scale concessions. Three of these tenure regimes offer considerable rights and management responsibilities to local communities, and were selected as field study sites. They include Pahawang Island in Pesawaran District, which is community-governed; Purworejo village in East Lampung District, which is a state forest zone; and Margasari village in East Lampung District, which falls under “areas for other land uses” (areal penggunaan lain [APL]), which is under local government control, but managed by the University of Lampung (UNILA).