The importance of institutional support to sustain communities' livelihoods in marine protected area: Tun Sakaran Marine Park, Sabah, Malaysia

This study was conducted in the first and the only marine protected area in Malaysia to include private land and recognize native customary rights (NCR) especially in matters regarding land. This exploration is especially timely for the communities in Tun Sakaran Marine Park (TSMP), where some are entitled to native rights and some have been given usufruct rights by native rights holders, and yet they are living in a gazetted park under Sabah Parks administration, a statutory body under Sabah’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment,. Therefore, it is crucial to examine the livelihoods impacts of park establishment on communities living within the park and the strategies to cope with the impacts. A sustainable livelihoods (SL) approach was adopted as a framework to analyse the relationships among the institutional entitlement, which is the NCR, livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes. In-depth household surveys and stakeholder interviews were undertaken during the fieldwork. Although co-management and ecotourism were planned to be implemented in TSMP, it was found that the local communities are not involved in management and benefited from any tourism activities. Therefore, institutional arrangement should be strengthened to support the design of more appropriate livelihoods strategies for communities in TSMP.