Governing Resources in a Changing Environment : Local Responses in Contemporary Rural East Java, Indonesia

Until 1998 Indonesia was ruled by an authoritarian regime under which natural resources were exploited excessively so that resources governance was not appropriate anymore dealing with sustainability issue. Throughout the contemporary reform process with the decentralization of power via local and regional autonomy, natural resources are no longer dominated by direct state power only, but also managed by more actors at various levels of society. To employ the concepts of political ecology, new institutionalism, livelihood strategy and social sustainability, the research showed that spatial production of Upland Bromo have always been dominated by state actors in order to establish the control over land and people. In the other hand, the contemporary environmental changes, socially and physically, coincidentally lessen the availability and productivity of the resources, which in turn has affected the local people’s livelihoods, leading to the increasing struggle for resources. As a result, three kinds of new local resources governance, namely multi institutional relationship, bilateral institutional relationship and personal relationship based resources governance are formed. In association with the sustainability issue, these new local resources governance was not really sustainable signalling by negative value in indicators analysed; ability to develop sustainability, bridge the sustainability, and maintenance sustainability. This research gives clear explanation that transformation of regime from authoritarian to democratic in developing countries do not always has significance impact in promoting sustainable resources governance.