Repositioning Common Property Right: An attempt to Govern Environment and Sustainable Natural Resources in Indonesia

Common Property is a traditional notion that develops a sense of communal pride towards land belonging to all members of a community and prevents the land from degradation. A government dominated development and repressive law that have been implemented in Indonesia have marginalized a social system in terms of local wisdom and led to the degradation of ecological capital. The separation of customary rights and norms from legal systems and the policy of domination, ownership, and allocation of natural resources by overlooking common property have resulted in the loss of resource rights. By using a doctrinal legal approach and progressive reasoning, it could be concluded that the loss of resource rights towards resources due to the absence of property rights might cause individuals or groups to have no legal right, which allows them to prohibit other parties to consume the resources. To ensure one's property rights and tenure rights, the relationship between the government and the society needs to be evaluated towards the democratic model paradigm in order to acknowledge common property in the legislation and uphold it as an alternative strategy to reduce externality.