Small Ripples to Waves: If Humans are the Biggest Problem in the World, Then We Have To Be The Solution As Well

By Cher Chua Lassalvy

Dr. Jarina Mohd. Jani is a human ecologist based within the Marine Biology department at University Malaysia Terengganu. Dr. Ja, as she is fondly known, has been working with local communities across Malaysia since the 1990s. She sits at the intersection between people and nature and has so much to share on her experiences in working with the community on a variety of conservation and ecotourism initiatives.

In this interview, Dr. Jarina speaks candidly to me about her experiences of working with communities in Malaysia. She speaks about the good she sees in humanity, recounts stories of connection and also of heartbreak but above all she shares some important insights and essential nuggets of advice for those of us entering into a community’s place particularly in the context of building tourism.

Jarina, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

I’m actually a human ecologist, and a lot of people say, “Wow, what is that?” A lot of people struggle with understanding ecology. So I’ll just break that down. First, ecology is about how living organisms relate to their surroundings. So, it could be how, for example, if you’re a fish ecologist, you try to understand how fish actually relate to their ecosystem. I’m a human ecologist, and so whilst a fish ecologist studies how fish interact with their surroundings, I look at how people, humans, (because we are also part of nature), behave in our surroundings. For example, some of my research has been about sea turtles, not sea turtle biology but about how people relate to sea turtles. Through consumption, through stories. A lot of cultures talk about Genesis. For example the Chinese say that the world is on the back of a big turtle. And the Native Americans also say the same thing. Those are the things that interest me.

The key word in what I do is looking at interactions, human ecology is the interaction with people and nature or in general, our surroundings.

How does your work link into tourism? Or more specifically “eco-tourism”?

So, what is tourism? Tourism is when a person goes out to experience things and is happy. That’s when you’re a tourist. When you go and discover something outside of your norm. When I talk about tourism I believe that we should be experiencing stuff. So, there’s this idea of being away, discovering things and that’s where I come in, because nature is one of the most important attractions that gives us that sense of happiness, that sense of discovering things.

I have been in this area since Sustainable Development became an important thing in the 1990s. People started to say that when people actually go and travel, people can make money. You actually improve the economy for a certain destination, because you have an attraction. And that was the time when we also thought that we have to protect, because when a lot of people come in we have to protect, but at the same time we want to make money, so we combine. That’s when we created eco-tourism.

Eco tourism is supposed to be how you are able to protect nature, but at the same time allowing people who are protecting it to have an income. Or sometimes you want to protect, but you don’t have the money. So we make tourism, because by making money from tourism, we are able to protect. So this is when conservation got together with tourism.

When I started to work in this space, I started to realize that a lot of people don’t understand eco-tourism, because if you look at the foundation of eco-tourism, it is community based, meaning that it benefits community first, and it happens in a in places that needs to be carefully taken care of. I see a lot of people not understanding the principles of ecotourism a lot.

What have people understood eco-tourism to be?

For the longest time, eco-tourism has been basically exploiting nature tourism, because they don’t include the element of community. That means we do business in places where the main assets are nature, like marine, beautiful coral reefs or mangrove or mountains or beautiful landscapes, valleys, rivers, waterfalls and we cater for people who actually look for these kinds of things. So that’s what people, for the longest time, called eco-tourism. And to be able to cater to this thing we have to build hotels in the protected areas. So where is the community here?

I’ve always been about people. I’ve always found it funny when people, the human species, are always condemned for the bad things that we do. Because I find it very funny that people always forget that there’s also a lot of good that we have done, and we have the potential of doing good, but there’s a lot of condemning. There has always been a dichotomy. It’s the “economy side” saying that all these people who are fighting for conservation, protection of the environment, are bad for business. And then people in the environment saying, “Oh, business is bad for the environment”. I have always been somewhere in the middle. For me there is no black or white. I’ve always been in the greyness. I’ve always seen people as potential for good.

I guess that’s where I start. And, of course, how many people have gotten rich from this, you know? But at what cost? The saddest part is, the cost is not for the people who come, it is for the people who are from there. This is their home. You know, they’ve been there for the longest time, and they have so much.

In Pulau Tioman, I was lucky, in a sense, because I remember when I went there for the first time, we got to know the people, the staff, the guides and everything. And they were from there. So, they were taking us to discover the island that other tourists don’t do. We were kayaking and they were collecting all these tern eggs they actually ate. And it was very funny for me. I said, “Why do you eat this?”. “Because it’s fishy”. I said, “then why don’t you just eat fish?”. “Because it’s a delicacy”, so stuff like that. Today nobody tells you these things, where did this community come from? You don’t even see the community in Pulau Redang because they are not on the beach. They’re back inside two kilometres away from the sea. So, in my small way, I try to highlight these things.

Where did you start?

I remember going to Pulau Tinggi, more than 20 years ago, my first real experience on an island with a community. And you see communities that live on this island and there is this developer coming and saying, “Oh, we’re going to do this”, or even an environmentalist saying, “Oh, we’re going to protect this”. But, whatever damage that we’re trying to repair is not done by them (the community). The damage is done by us, by consumerism. We impose it on them. They (the communities) have always had to carry the burden of our guilt. I always feel that there’s a lot more that we can learn from communities than what we think we are able to teach them.

The Setiu project

Dr. Jarina talks about her first project in Malaysia, which involved replanting mangroves in Setiu, Terengganu, after the tsunami. The project focused on rehabilitating degraded areas, like a site cleared for a jetty. While the community was not initially driven by environmental concerns, they embraced the activity as something new and enjoyable, supported by a sense of togetherness and local leadership.

The project evolved into a broader community initiative, creating nurseries and eventually turning the area into a State Park and tourist attraction. Dr. Jarina talks about how the project encouraged sustainable livelihoods, like crafts from plants and community-run eco-tourism, showcasing the potential of grassroots conservation.

Jarina speaks about communities in the context of this experience:

They are running it themselves, whether rightly or wrongly. Some people are running it seeing the projects more for the money than for nature. Some people think that if it’s community, it’s pure. No, some people are just creating this because they say, “Oh, there’s a lot of money to be made in planting”. So, it has happened where certain people will just go and pull out wildlings, because there’s a group coming wanting to plant. Because you get RM 10 for each tree, it happens.

But for me, your role is just to advise with the hope that they will mature. Community members are not stupid. And we have to recognize the fact that not everybody wants to save the world or wants to be an environmentalist. Some people are just doing it for the money, but as long as they are doing it the way they should, it’s fine. Some people are a bit idealistic, and they say, “oh, no, your heart has to be green to be able to make it mean something”. I don’t believe that. As long as it’s done, at the end it’s the impact, but you allow the community to discover. Some of them mean well, but they do things incorrectly. Some people do it well, but intention is not there, but whatever it is, let it be. Let it be theirs, you know.

And so that’s what I’ve been doing. I worked with ladies, women who never before spoke or interacted with people. Now they can explain to people and they have a sense of pride, because, this is another thing about orang kampung, they always think, “Oh, we are so backward, we have nothing to share”. And then you bring people in, like all these Mat Salleh who actually admire you for what you do, and suddenly you find value in yourself.

So, that’s where I think tourism has gone wrong, because you always think you have to come and add value, because you fail to come into a place, a community, and see the value that they already have.

So, this goes back to my conceptual thinking, because my foundation in my academic thinking is actually on the sustainable livelihood framework, where I believe you start with what you have. Because for the longest time, I think the developers who come in and say, we’re bringing this, because they always look at what they don’t have instead of looking at what they do have, that works or can be enhanced? So instead of coming into, you know, always wanting to give, we can think what can we actually get from them, what can they offer?

What is your advice to someone approaching communities in the “eco-tourism” space or with the intention of doing real eco-tourism?

I think first of all you have to be genuinely interested. You are going there because you’re really interested in that place, that’s a very good start. If you don’t have interest in that place, don’t go, first of all. But when you have interest, when you come to a place, you have to be reflective about your baggage. Remember what you are bringing in and remember that what you’re trying to offer them might not be what they need. If you are interested in the place, try to, as much as possible, to offload. And ask, because there is a reason that you like this place, what are the things that you don’t know about this place yet? Go and discover. So when you go in, just say, for example, Perlis. “I’ve, I’ve always felt that Perlis has so much more to offer. What do you think?” And just listen and just be an observer, just see things, because this is the problem as well, most communities, they can’t tell you what else they can offer. They say, there’s nothing to offer, because they don’t see their value. Your job is to show them.

I remember, in Tioman when I went to Muka, and I remember, so I said, “My God, in Tioman, you still have banana trees?” I said, “Can you imagine the tourist from Salang, Mat Salleh coming here, looking at the banana tree, able to pluck his own banana. Isn’t that, like, so exciting?” They say, “oh is it?” But they don’t see it.

So, they don’t see, so you must be the one to say, oh, you know, this is so exciting. You give value to them, but you don’t come and say, “oh, you know, people would like this”. What people like to do is they say, “Oh, you know, in Johor, this sells very well. You should do that” atau “you should do this. This will sell so well because you have it”. But they don’t do that. What do they have instead that they can offer?

Capacity building is not about giving them new things to become, it is about fulfilling their potential. You know, really achieving their full potential. What potential do you see in them?

That’s why you go in and see what potential they have, these people and their surroundings? It’s bio-cultural. So, it’s not just people. For me, what is interesting about bio-culture is that you have to remember that people are that way because of their surroundings. And the surroundings are also like that because of the people. So, there must be something that shows the connection. And this is what, if you want to make a destination interesting, is to leverage on that. Whatever made that community, can also be of interest to another person because that person is also human. Potential, you have to look at the potential of the place. Come in with that.

Tourism is not for everybody. Being a host is not for everybody. You have to go in and see what it is that the community can do, otherwise, in the end, if you come in with what you think can be promoted in this place, it will not be from people from there. It will be people from outside. Whoever comes into a place has to know that you are only there to bring out the best in them.

So once you have identified the potential of a place and of a community, what’s the next step?

Scaling. This is where you have to spend a lot of time with the community. You have to know, like I said, some people are good for some things. For example, you have somebody who can make a certain craft so well, but, you know, he will never be able to demonstrate, because he’s nervous. He doesn’t like crowds. So, if you put him in front of people to demonstrate, he will never be able to finish anything. You must be able to scale down to what is doable, first, so simple things. For example, you go to a village, there’s so many things you can highlight, but what is something that you can highlight right away? For example, food is easy, right? And you don’t have to talk. You can serve food, and you get somebody else to talk about the food. Or demonstrating they can cook. They don’t have to speak. You must match make. And you have to be convincing. You have to sell first. If you start with something doable, then it will create interest. And then you invest in that, and you say, Oh, see, it’s interesting. This is a person who has never done that before. And they think, hey I can do that as well. You want to create this ripple. I always say, start with a ripple first. Then only you can create waves. You start small, so you scale up, you scale up, but you build. It has to be organic, you get the small success, but you have to start. That’s why I say start small, because then you can be sure that you can invest all your resources to make it work. It must work because you have to earn their trust. And then when it works, even small, then you start to build and you build.

And this is also a problem for me. A lot of people don’t like me because I believe in starting small and always small and a little bigger, and then bigger. I don’t like to jump. I think by jumping you lose a lot in the middle. So, my advice would be to build up capacity, their capacity, so they grow as well, and they won’t be overwhelmed. Sustainability is about making sure that you can cater to the demand. Because the biggest problem about tourism as well, especially when they’re trying to promote local tourism, is overselling. It’s also very, very problematic. Overselling, don’t do it, because with the Tik Tok and social media, overselling is so easy, so common. I think that’s where you have to control and give the community a sense of not being forced. They do it because it’s something they really want to do.

That’s why, I think, like, for example, in Pulau Besar, I love the fact that they really shared with me. And of course, I’m biased, because I love ketupat, and they were saying they used to have this ketupat competition. I said, My God, why don’t we start that again? You know things that they already know, things that are not so foreign to them. Start with stuff that they have always done and then just revive. Why don’t we just revive things first, instead of starting something new? Revival is very important. Start with routines which look mundane to you, but for outsiders, it will be so exciting for them to be able to ride your becha or go into the dusun and collect your fruits.

II know many people have felt very disillusioned at times when working with communities. Have you ever had to deal with disappointment?

I’ve cried, I rarely cry, you know, out of frustration but working with the community has made me cry. I’ve gotten my heart broken a few times working with the community. What breaks your heart is because you suddenly realize that you’re not one of them. They don’t see you as one of them, and that’s why they’re charging you, for example. I mean, they would never charge their family, so you realize suddenly that there’s this boundary you thought you had broken, that you were one of them.

So for me, it broke my heart when I realized that some of the community actually saw me as an opportunity. They called me lubu emas, the pot of gold, the leprechaun’s pot of gold because I bring money to the community. They saw me as that.

I have a friend who used to get so sad and he used to tell me, I’m fighting for them and they stab my back. And I said, no, this is the problem. You’re not fighting for them. You have to get off your high horse. You are only with the community if you’re able to put yourself as their support team. You are only there because they want you to be there. You only give what you can, and it’s up to them to take it or not. So, you must be able to be resilient. Otherwise, it will be so frustrating because the politics in the village is worse than Malaysian politics. It’s worse. So, if you can be realistic about that, that’s a good start. I don’t have any expectations of the community. I feel that if they want me to help, if they think that I see potential in them, and I see we can work, I will talk, but I have no expectation that they will take or not, because a lot of it, they don’t, and it’s their right. They have the right to do right or wrong. But the most important thing is that if we do have better information, we give them, if we have better facilities, we give them if they want, but it’s their decision. If they want to go bust let them, and this is their decision. I always tell myself; you always have to remember you are never going to be one of them. They might love you and everything, but still, at the end of the day, blood is thicker than water. Kin, because if this bad person who’s trying to sabotage the whole thing is a relative, they just have to go rally with that person. It’s a social thing. Don’t let it get to you personally. It’s just the way things are. That’s why I always tell myself, I’m there if they need me, I’m there if they want me. Because you always have to tell yourself, and I think this is also the problem for a lot of people working with community, they don’t tell themselves on the first day they go in that I am only successful when I get out.

You are only successful in your work with the community, when you can leave them to do whatever they must or to do whatever they want to do. You only come in because they are not able to do. So, you’re supporting them to be able to bring them, but always consider that your long-term plan is to leave. And don’t let it get to you personally.

Yeah, so I just tell myself that it’s nothing personal and, and there must be very little ego. There has to be very little ego and you need to keep some distance. I try, I think I try. Also don’t oversell yourself, you have to manage expectations. What is it that you can give? Try your best. It’s not easy. It’s not easy. I keep saying I should write a book about it. Alim and I always say we should write a book on the do’s and don’ts in working with the community. Maybe when I retire, I’ll sit down and write that.

And you hear the struggle. People get heartbroken and frustrated. Everywhere…

Like I said, I have had my heart broken. But it’s also important to know when to walk away. So, when that happened, I found out that they had been just pretending all this time, I knew that the values were different, that they didn’t have the same values as me. So, I said, I must leave, because I have to let them become whoever they want to be.

I cannot impose my values on them if this is where they want to go, I just have to let them be, but I don’t have to be part of it. So, I told them that if my advice is no longer heeded, if you don’t think it’s of value, then I should move away. I shouldn’t be your advisor anymore. You take somebody who can help you, I said. And so, I moved out. And you have to be consistent as well. You don’t compromise that and they know it’s nothing personal. You know, I still talk to them. When I meet them, I still talk to them. So, for this guy, he’s come back to me, he’s tried to, but I am never going to work with him anymore. He knows, or I will work with him on things that I can manage. For example, I can see all the catering from them I can do, but I’m never going to invest in things that I think would have value conflicts. So only services, direct, transaction, very transparent, then there’s no heart involved. So I don’t do programmes with him, because I don’t think they have the same values.

Don’t burn your bridges. Always come out, always know you’re dispensable, then it’s easier for you. The moment you know you have to walk out, you just walk out, save yourself. You have to save yourself. Don’t let them drag you. Because people become so involved and they think they just have to suck it up. Don’t compromise, don’t become emotional. Just say, okay, fine. We have done beautiful things together, we’ve done wonderful things together, but now our paths are different. So you go and be successful in whatever you’re doing, and I’ll work with other people who see the same things as I do. So, you might fail as well with other people, and that’s why I say ego… if you do this because you believe, then it doesn’t matter whether you fail each time, because even in your failure, they realize, oh, okay, now we get it. Now we get what Dr. Ja was trying to do. I think the most important thing is to be able to sleep at night and remember community politics is very messy. It’s very important that you don’t take it personally because it’s just so complicated, it’s very messy.

So, to wrap up, why do you do it?

Because I believe in people. Because I want to be able to contribute to improving things, especially in nature conservation, that’s what I feel strongly about. And a lot of people are doing a lot for saving organisms, for example, the tiger, the forest. But there’s not many doing it with the community, because I believe that it means more when the people who are in the locality are involved. Like my research with the Menrak, the Jahai people. They’re now promoted as the tiger guard wardens and they are actually patrolling. But for me, I was trying to understand, what does it mean to them? What does the forest mean to them? What do Tigers mean to them? We have found out things like, actually, they don’t want to be carrying all those bags or walking with boots in the forest because it is tiresome. It’s burdensome. So why can’t we do it the way they do because it’s more efficient for them, it’s easier for them to walk barefoot, because at the end of the day, you just want to get the things done. It doesn’t have to be the way we do it. So, I believe that if we want to get more people to take care of the environment then we have to basically invest in them.

And if with local communities, especially if it’s rural, let them do it their way, because their way actually works better than our way. Or maybe there is a middle ground, we can actually maybe improve certain things that they’re doing. If they say, “Oh yes, this will be interesting”, then do it, but do not impose it on them. Because whatever it is, wherever we go, the locals know better, whether it works or it doesn’t work. So find out first. Don’t come in with this idea that they don’t know. Like I said, when you do something, invest in people. Because I think now, we invest in technology but I think technology breaks down. If you invest in people, I think it’s different because people grow and maybe this is why I’m a human ecologist. I think there’s so much more potential in humans than what we give them credit for, and that’s why I believe that if we’re the biggest problem in the world, then we have to be the solution as well.

Small Ripples to Waves: If Humans are the Biggest Problem in the World, Then We Have To Be The Solution As Well

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