“…Previous research on the Bajau communities has revealed several unique characteristics that distinguish the Bajau from other customary groups in Indonesia. They are: very skillful in breath-hold diving for spear shing and gathering about six to ten meters underwater (Abrahamsson & Schagatay, 2014), having a conservation understanding of both marine and coastal areas (Clifton & Majors, 2012;Pauwelussen & Verschoor, 2017;Tomoya & Dedi, 1996;Warsito et al, 2020), and land area (Majid Cooke & Johari, 2019) having knowledge on weather forecasting and shing calendar (Nakano, 2020), having environmental cosmology (Santamaria, 2019), having customary laws (Muslim et al, 2020;Nolde, 2009), and performing adaptive management to the current world (Ismail & Ahmad, 2015;Lynch & Turner, 2021). Despite having been recognized in previous studies for possessing expertise in the above-mentioned elds, the Bajau are still excluded from playing a role in Indonesia's customary-based coastal management programs.…”