Structural modeling of Sama Bajo fishers social resilience in a marine national park

This article describes and compares three modelings of the relationship between Sama Bajo boat-dwellers Bagai land-dwellers social capital and the social resilience of Sama Bajo in three local social contexts of land-dwellers in Wakatobi National Park (WNP). The research was conducted from May 2018 until June 2019 in Mantigola Sama Bajo on Kaledupa Island, Lamanggau Sama Bajo on Tomia Island, and Mola Sama Bajo on Wangi-wangi Island. Information was collected from 240 respondents who were selected by spatial sampling technique. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis, we found that the structural model is effective for evaluating social resilience, particularly for Mantigola and Lamanggau Sama Bajo who interact with homogenous land-dwellers, namely Kaledupa and Tomia land-dwellers as well as a stepping stone to strengthen their social resilience capacity by taking into account social relation, livelihood, the human and financial capital of the land-dwellers in the marine preserve area. Despite the success shown, a key constraint is due to inadequacies when the structural modeling reflects the urban local social environment of Sama Bajo as stated by Mola Sama Bajo, who established their bridging capital to the heterogeneous land-dwellers. Future research should take limitations into account by identifying various land-dwellers who develop social ties with the boat-dwellers. Similar research should be taken into consideration to validate the modeling in Sama Bajo populations that live in open access types. This is crucial to determine if other characteristics of Sama Bajo social resilience appear in the social setting of a different kinds of marine preserve areas.