“Fish Forever” Campaigns: Enacting Communities of Care and Semangat Through Indonesian Fisheries Cooperatives

ABSTRACT

To illustrate communities of care in conservation, this essay provides three brief examples of campaigns in rural fishing communities in Indonesia. Based on long term fieldwork, we illustrate how the non-profit environmental organization Rare has trained campaign managers to develop community-based programs that promote people’s well-being in relationship to their environments and communities through nutrition, financial stability, education, and collective engagement. In numerous campaigns across fishing communities in Indonesia, campaign managers work together with community members, and especially fishers, to develop marine protected areas or managed reserves with access that function as community fisheries, savings clubs or micro-credit unions, and fishery cooperatives in which fishers determine rules and regulations that community members agree upon. These approaches create a network of care that embodies the Indonesian term, semangat [spirit].

KEYWORDS:

• fisheries
• marine protected areas
• fishing cooperatives
• conservation campaigns
• credit unions
• Indonesia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).