Across the small islands of eastern Indonesia that lie within the Wallacea region, one of the world’s richest marine biodiversity regions, coastal communities are reviving ancient customary systems to safeguard marine ecosystems from destructive fishing and habitat loss. This movement is the centerpiece of Jejak Wallacea, a recent documentary highlighting how local empowerment can succeed where top-down conservation often fails, reports Mongabay’s Hans Nicholas Jong. The film features initiatives across four provinces: East Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and Central Sulawesi. These communities have turned to locally rooted methods of reverse biodiversity loss, such as seasonal fishing closures, customary sanctions and mangrove restoration. In Solor, East Nusa Tenggara, residents established traditionally protected marine areas that they refer to as “marine granaries” (kebang lewa lolon) to restore coral reefs and created turtle hatcheries. They are also moving away from harmful blast fishing. “What we chose was conservation, but based on local wisdom,” Vero Lamahoda, director of the local foundation Yayasan Tanah Ile Boleng that is supporting the communities in the transition, said in the documentary. In Southeast Sulawesi, the village of Wabula employs a customary system called Kaombo, which regulates access to traditionally protected areas like seagrass beds and mangroves. Violators face customary fines or rituals like Kaleo Leo, where suspects are dunked into the sea, and the individual who surfaces first is considered the guilty party. Similarly, communities on Langkai and Lanjukang islands in South Sulawesi utilize periodic closures of marine areas for octopus fishing to allow populations to…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Tshopo province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo granted 31 community forest land titles to farmers in May, bringing a total of more than a million hectares of forest in Tshopo under the legal stewardship of local Indigenous peoples. Bantu and Indigenous Mbuti communities have lived in the province for generations, but without official title or control of their own lands and under the ever-present threat of extractive and development projects without their consent. Community Forestry Lands (CFLCs) include community environmental management plans. They also offer legal tenure that’s meant to ensure any development on those forest lands requires the free and informed consent of the communities holding the tenure rights. According to the deforestation-tracking platform Global Forest Watch, Tshopo province lost roughly 46% of its total tree cover between 2002 and 2025, largely driven by timber harvesting, charcoal production and mining. These activities degrade the ecosystem and destabilize the livelihoods and food systems of indigenous peoples. “[E]xtreme poverty is gaining ground among indigenous peoples and local communities, for whom the forest is more of a habitat than a source of vital goods and services,” Alphonse Maindo, director of the environmental NGO Tropenbos DRC that helped the communities obtain CFLCs, told Mongabay’s Didier Makal. The recently granted community forest concessions in Tshopo, when added to other such community management areas, means nearly 6.3 million hectares (15.5 million acres) of secured land in the DRC. That’s an area roughly the size of Togo. Some local residents are planning to start beekeeping and cocoa…This article was originally published on Mongabay