My academic and professional background uniquely qualifies me for this proposed PhD project. With a Bachelor of Law in socio-legal studies from the University of Indonesia and a Master in Marine Affairs from Xiamen University, my education bridges law, sociology, and marine conservation. I have developed my research skills through these degrees, including through my research master thesis, a comparative cross-country analysis of marine debris laws and policies. My research capacity is further demonstrated by my primary-authored paper on fisheries co-management published in the peer-reviewed journal Marine Policy and additional papers in review (one primary-authored, one co-authored with my proposed primary supervisor).
Professionally, I have worked as a researcher at the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, contributing to policy reform and advocacy. My research role at the global non-profit Blue Ventures focused on locally-managed marine areas, where I contributed to securing legal recognition and financial support for these areas advancing an equitable conservation. Specifically, this research involved assessing ocean injustice in seven sites using key informant interviews with fishers and literature reviews on which I was a co-investigator. As a Senior Regional Strategist at Greenpeace Southeast Asia, I currently work on multilateral environmental agreements, including the Plastic Treaty and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and have attended multiple associated meetings as a negotiator. This has furthered my expertise and knowledge of marine conservation governance, including in relation to connecting local actions with global decision-making. Of particular relevance is my current work on advancing conservation equity in the implementation of the CBD Global Biodiversity Framework.

In summary, my knowledge and applied experience working on community-based and co-managed marine management, including in on-ground practice global policy-making and in the area of equity, aligns well with this project’s global to local focus on traditional knowledge, equity, and marine co-management. These experiences equip me to contribute effectively to the project while deepening my understanding of governance frameworks and equitable marine conservation. Through this project, I aim to deepen my understanding of traditional knowledge, equity, and environmental governance while enhancing my skills in interviews, qualitative data analysis, research design, and paper writing, allowing me to leverage science-based advocacy for meaningful change in governance frameworks and equitable marine conservation.

Integrating Traditional Knowledge in Co-Managed Marine Conservation: Implications for Distributional and Procedural Equity

2025 to 2029

Project Description

Co-management approaches involving key stakeholders (e.g. Indigenous peoples and local communities) are increasingly recognized as vital for successful conservation. These approaches can better reflect local conditions, thereby securing local support. However, many co-management initiatives fall short, and with a key barrier being inadequate recognition of traditional ecological knowledge, which hampers equity in decision-making and benefit- and cost-sharing. Indeed, this reflects a well-recognised gap in the environmental justice literature; how recognitional equity is related to distributional and procedural equity.

To address this gap, the overarching question of this thesis is: How does recognitional equity with respect to traditional knowledge held by Indigenous peoples and local communities relate to procedural and distributional equity in co-managed marine conservation? Focusing on coral reef case studies in Australia and Indonesia, the research will investigate how traditional knowledge is recognised in international and national conservation policies, and in on-ground practice, and how this recognition influences procedural and distributional equity.

This research will advance equity theory by examining the relationships between recognition, distribution, and procedure in environmental governance. The findings will provide guidance to co-managed marine conservation practice on how to foster equity, particularly regarding the recognition and use of traditional knowledge, thereby ensuring conservation benefits both people and nature.

Project Importance

My proposed project directly supports the AIMS@JCU Social Science and Human Dimensions priority area and sub-goals, most prominently, ‘Understanding, and learning from, the traditional ecological knowledge and environmental management practices of Indigenous Australians’ (p.6 of the current Triennial Plan). My research is designed to provide insights and guidance for governance protocols to foster equity, in particular with respect to the recognition and use of plural knowledge, including traditional knowledge, in co-managed marine conservation. Such insights will contribute to bridging gaps in understanding ‘how human-nature relationships are changing under accelerated environmental change’ (p.6 Triennial Plan), particularly for First Nations peoples and Traditional Owners with deep cultural connections to country. Understanding traditional knowledge, and traditional reef uses will deepen understanding of the social and cultural values associated with ecosystem change (a gap articulated on p.7 of the Triennial plan).

Further, given this project will involve working with Indigenous peoples and Traditional Owners in Australia, the project will contribute to the AIMS Indigenous Partnership Program, and its goal to elevate traditional knowledge to create novel insights into the management of Australia’s marine systems.

The research will be conducted using case studies of coral reef conservation in Australia and Indonesia, thereby aligning with the Social Science and Human Dimensions Priority Area by focusing on a key climate-impacted tropical system. Additionally, the Australia case study will be in the Great Barrier Reef region, and will contribute to AIMS Research Program “A healthy and resilient Great Barrier Reef” by providing guidance on how to foster equity and the use of traditional knowledge in conservation governance.

Project Methods

The proposed project will address the three aims using a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, through a case study of co-managed marine conservation in Indonesia and Australia. With large coastlines and home to ocean-dependent communities and critical marine biodiversity, Indonesia and Australia make for good comparative case studies given co-management governance approaches involving Indigenous peoples and local communities are increasingly used but these countries differ significantly in terms of their social, cultural and political context, including national conservation institutions and frameworks.

Research Aim 1: Explore how traditional knowledge is recognised in national to global conservation policy and legal frameworks using a tri-dimensional equity lens First, key conservation policies at the global and national levels of governance will be identified.

This will include, for example, the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Global Biodiversity Framework and associated National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plans. A framework drawing on existing literature on equity and traditional knowledge will be developed, which will be used to guide a mixed methods content analysis, a method commonly used in analyzing conservation policies, to uncover how traditional knowledge is recognised and integrated and the implications for equity. The content analysis will include quantitative methods (word frequency) and qualitative methods (contextual text analysis), and will include deductive and inductive processes to develop content codes. Analysis will be undertaken using the software program NVivo.

Research Aim 2: Assess how traditional knowledge is recognised and used in co-managed marine conservation practice and the factors affecting it.

Aim 2 and 3 will be addressed using analysis of management plans and interviews conducted with key informants associated with co-managed marine conservation sites in East Lombok, Indonesia and Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Two study sites associated with coral reefs will be selected in each country. The study sites will be selected to ensure comparability and logistic feasibility, considering degree of power sharing between government and Indigenous and local communities and existing connections and experience of the candidate and the supervisory panel in these regions. Key informants will include local community leaders, conservation managers, government representatives, fishers, and community representatives, and will be selected to ensure gender and age representation. Participant observation will also be employed to gain insights into the recognition and use of traditional knowledge in conservation practice. Interview data and the management plans will be analyzed using content analysis to identify patterns and themes related to the recognition and utilisation of traditional knowledge.

Research Aim 3: Determine how the recognition of traditional knowledge is related to procedural and distributional equity in co-managed marine conservation practice.

Data for this aim will be collected alongside Aim 2, using the same sites, sampling approach, and interview guide. The focus will be on decision-making processes and the distribution of costs and benefits. The frameworks by Ruano-Chamorro et al. (2021) and Gurney et al. (2021) will guide the analysis, providing a structured approach to understanding the equity implications of traditional knowledge recognition in co-managed marine conservation practices

Keywords

Behaviour,
Climate change,
Coastal development,
Indigenous culture,
Interaction,
Marine planning,
Social interactions