Presentation short abstract

Based on ethnography in North Sulawesi, this paper explores coral restoration as a contested form of world-making where care, authority, and capital meet. It shows how restoration redefines human–reef relations and reflects the politics of Indonesia’s blue economy.

Presentation long abstract

In recent years, coral reef restoration (CRR) has emerged as a key strategy within Indonesia’s expanding blue economy agenda, with the government positioning the country as a global leader in reef rehabilitation. However, only a small proportion of CRR projects include evaluation mechanisms (Razak et al. 2022), raising concerns about their ecological efficacy and governance legitimacy. This paper presents preliminary findings from six months of ethnographic fieldwork in North Sulawesi, an area known for its high marine biodiversity, where CRR initiatives have grown in popularity in recent years.

These initiatives vary widely in scale, actors involved, and motivations - from government-led programs and private sector CSR projects to community-driven efforts and tourist-facing restoration ‘experiences’. Many of these projects blur the lines between environmental care, commercial interest, and public legitimacy, raising critical questions about who governs restoration practices, to what ends, and with whose knowledge.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with stakeholders from NGOs, government, the tourism sector, and the scientific community, this paper situates CRR within the broader political ecology of ocean governance and blue economies. The paper argues that coral restoration is not merely a technical intervention but a political and moral project that remakes relations between humans, reefs, and the state. It reveals how competing logics of care, capital, and ecological repair shape the material and imaginative geographies of Indonesia’s seascapes. In doing so, it contributes to critical debates on restoration as a form of environmental governance and a site where ecological, economic, and ethical futures are negotiated.