Research Profile: Development, Environment and Communications

Development Studies professor Dr. Chui-Ling Tam wrestles with the communication of environmental management and resource development in the island regions of Muna and Wakatobi in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia.

In the face of dwindling fishery resources, marine communities in Muna are turning to aquaculture and alternative livelihoods while Wakatobi is becoming an international marine tourism destination. However, conflicts have arisen over what constitutes locally appropriate development, its actual beneficiaries, and the perceived value of the marine environment. "As such," says Tam, "Muna and Wakatobi are spaces of struggle over the meaning, management and access to marine resources which constitute economic, spiritual, and aesthetic goods."

Tam says that sound environmental development and management requires engagement with the social and cultural forces embedded in communication, such as communication strategies, communication relations, identity politics, and the relative power of different actors to convey and promote their development visions.

Human resettlement, relative poverty, access to education and healthcare, authority structures, economic and gender relations, resource degradation, state economic priorities and the global environmental movement all contribute to the framing of environmental problems and development solutions. This has implications for the inclusion and exclusion of different development actors as holders of ecological knowledge, with implications for knowledge-sharing, decision-making, and implementation. Asks Tam: "Whose story is communicated in development?"