Compliance and Enforcement of Community-Based Coastal Resource Management Regulations in North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract

Community-based coastal resources management has become a popular approach to marine conservation and sustainable fisheries management in the Asia-Pacific region. One premise of this approach is that enforcement of community management initiatives is the primary responsibility of the community and that, in most instances, they have the capability to effectively enforce locally developed regulations and rules. The socioeconomic theory of resource management compliance is reviewed and applied to community-based case examples from North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Compliance with nondestructive exploitation practices in several village sites, empirically measured by changes in live hard coral cover, was related to reef distance from a settlement area and not significantly related to visibility from a settlement. A typology of enforcement strategies relative to the type of violator and violation is presented. In certain instances, a comanagement approach is preferred in order to achieve effective enforcement and high compliance.