Adaptive Governance in Mining Environmental Governance in POHUWATO District

Abstract

Illegal gold mining has become a persistent environmental governance challenge in Pohuwato Regency, Indonesia, causing environmental degradation and increasing public health risks, particularly malaria associated with abandoned mining pits. Conventional regulatory approaches have been insufficient to address these interconnected socio-ecological problems. This study examines actor and institutional relationships, explores adaptive governance mechanisms, and identifies the factors shaping institutional adaptive capacity in mining environmental governance. An interpretive qualitative case study was employed using in-depth interviews with twelve key informants, field observations, and document analysis. Data were analyzed thematically using the four dimensions of adaptive governance proposed by Folke et al., namely cross-actor collaboration, policy learning, polycentric governance, and institutional adaptive capacity. The findings reveal an adaptive governance paradox, where strong community-based collaboration, social learning, and local knowledge support environmental resilience, while formal governance remains constrained by centralized authority, fragmented institutional coordination, regulatory overlap, and unequal resource distribution. Consequently, local adaptive capacities fail to influence formal policy learning, allowing environmental degradation and related health crises to persist. The study contributes to adaptive governance theory by explaining the disconnect between informal adaptive systems and formal governance institutions and provides policy recommendations for strengthening collaboration, decentralization, and adaptive environmental governance.