A Study of Indigenous Community-Based Economy at the Regency of Jayapura

Abstract

The research aims to discover the potential of local natural resources in improving the economic life by utilizing the indigenous communities’ local wisdom at the regency of Jayapura. Two local customary councils namely Sentani and Moi were used as samples. Data was collected by the interviews to both tribal leaders and heads of village, observation as well as secondary data analysis and analyzed by three stages: data reduction, presentation of the data and drawing conclusion. The results show that the livelihood of DAS Sentani is farming, fishing and taping sago where their natural resources are fish, sago, coconut, areca nut while that of DAS Moi is farming and livestock and the natural resources are gold and rock mines, tourist attraction, sago, durian and rambutan. Both indigenous communities have their local wisdoms that are believed to have rewards if they obey and sanctions or punishments if disobeyed. Some local government’s strategies are recommended to be done in order to help both communities to improve better quality of life.