Governing ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction Mangroves in Indonesia and India

This study focuses on the potential for governing coastal disaster risks in developing countries through a mangrove ecosystem-based approach to understand the factors contribute to the success of coastal, mangrove ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction strategies. The interactive governance theory is utilized to understand the relations between the social and natural systems at the multi-levels, but especially at the local level.
The research employed a mixed qualitative and quantitative method, including a review of literature and policy documents, field survey, interview and focus group discussion. The case study of Indonesia and India are selected since they have both suffered recently from coastal disasters including the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and coastal erosion induced flooding and using mangrove ecosystems as protection against ongoing coastal disaster.
The research shows that the interactive governance approach and governability assessment framework is useful for assessing the relevance of Eco-DRR. It produces four potential governing pathways which could increase governability of Eco-DRR, namely 1) coordination; 2) goodness of fit; 3) social mobilization, and 4) learning and adaptiveness. However, the research also revealed that despite government support, both in Indonesia and India, the mangrove Eco-DRR programmes are more projects undertaken primarily by non-governmental and financed by foreign actors. This raises the question whether coastal developing countries have the capacity and resources to undertake programmatic, systematic coastal disaster risk reduction governance in the short and long term, addressing the growing long-term coastal disaster risks as a result of climate variability and change.