Alternative livelihoods for shark conservation 27
village leader or other community members rather than a fundamental disagreement with shark conservation or the project process. This corroborates earlier research on human–wildlife conflict, demonstrating that conservation issues can often be manifestations of underlying conflicts between people (Redpath et al., 2015). Understanding and resolving these underlying human–human conflicts would have enabled a more inclusive process, with substantial benefits to thresher shark conservation. We also noted income variations post-intervention, with
some fishers experiencing significant increases, whereas others earned less than from shark fishing (Fig. 3). Factors contributing to this disparity include the predictability of chosen livelihoods. For example, transitioning to land-based businesses proved more profitable and reliable than tuna and red snapper fisheries, which involve higher uncertainty and are subject to seasonal fluctuations (Merino et al., 2020). Additionally, technical support is needed for the women’s group engaged in independent production to address challenges such as navigating local governance, ensuring a consistent supply of raw materials and maintaining market access (Adeel & Safriel, 2008; Patil et al., 2009; Akpomuvie, 2010). Continuous assistance for fishers and women’s groups is essential during the early intervention phase. This support should continue until the capacity of group governance is established and the business develops suffi- cient capital and scale to become self-sustaining and resili- ent during inevitable downturns.
Benefits and pitfalls of policy change
On a broader scale, the enactment of district and provincial regulations signified a shift in the commitment of govern- ment authorities at higher levels, which had initially lacked knowledge regarding pelagic thresher sharks and their con- servation. In regions such as East Nusa Tenggara, marine conservation faced challenges because immediate develop- ment concerns (e.g. malnutrition, poverty and malaria) were prioritized for government action (Roosihermiatie et al., 2015; Ferezagia, 2018; Djara & Jaya, 2021). Despite its significance for elasmobranchs, the Eastern Indonesia re- gion, in which Alor is located, was overlooked and received little conservation attention (Fox et al., 2009; Jaiteh et al., 2017a). Our comprehensive strategy persuaded govern- ment members to apply regulatory measures and allocate conservation budgets (Supplementary Table 3). This was supported by a narrative on the potential of thresher sharks to contribute to the district’s economic growth in non-extractive ways, if fishers targeting sharks could secure viable alternative livelihoods. An example of suc- cessful tourism focused on thresher sharks in Malapas- cua in the Philippines provided crucial motivation to ex- plore this avenue (Cruz, 2016).
However, effective policy integration continued to pose
challenges across the village, district and provincial levels. The limited coercive power of regulatory bodies and mechan- isms, and the absence of national protection for pelagic threshers, hampered appropriate enforcement. Additionally, shark tourism, which provided the main impetus for regula- tion, failed to deliver an immediately viable alternative to shark fishing. This was exacerbated by the lack of financial support and by tourism shutdown during the Covid-19 pan- demic (Arumsari & Yosintha, 2021), highlighting the impor- tance of integrated interventions and mixed approaches, with complementary regulations or legal sanctions bolster- ing livelihood-based interventions (Booth et al., 2021). The interplay of macro- and micro-economic factors and the role of complementary market forces are crucial for driving change at the local level. Finally, in our case, policies became entangled with inter-
personal socio-political issues, evolving into sensitive polit- ical matters that disrupted social dynamics in Lewalu and Ampera. The regulations were politicized, leading to com- munity disputes manipulated by political actors seeking personal gain. This became particularly apparent during district and provincial elections. This highlights the neces- sity of considering comprehensive risk assessment and mit- igation plans in the project design, such as analysing the political actors and their influence as means for strategic engagement. Moreover, the implementation of interven- tions should consider the political calendar and minimize activities during local elections, to avoid or mitigate po- tential political disputes and manipulation.
General lessons learnt for effective livelihood-based interventions
As demonstrated here, livelihood interventions are often complex, fraught with trade-offs and conflicts at different levels, and require extensive context-specific engagement and actions. Nonetheless, our findings and practical experi- ences highlight several general lessons. Firstly, the success of our approach relied on the avail-
ability of a robust baseline knowledge on individual and group characteristics, including socio-political networks and social status (Booth et al., 2019). This baseline supported informed decision-making on how the opportunity to par- ticipate in the alternative livelihoods could be distributed, ensuring it could reach the most appropriate and deserving beneficiaries and avoid elite capture or corruption (Platteau, 2004; Roe et al., 2015; Fritz et al., 2018). This information also helped us to create a clear communication strategy to prevent incorrect assumptions about the types of livelihood- based interventions that might work and, thus, the misin- formed top-down imposition of any potential solution (Wright et al., 2016).
Oryx, 2025, 59(1), 19–30 © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324001376
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