Saving Mangrove, Saving People: Fish-Collab, A Collaborative Governance Approach for Protecting Mangrove in Langkat, North Sumatera Indonesia INTAN ADHI PERDANA PUTRI, ATIKA ZAHRA, IMAM SYAFII, DEDI ADHURI, MOCHAMMAD NADJIB & TRIYANTO Received: 3 October 2019 Accepted: 15 November 2019 Published: 20 December 2019 Corresponding author: Intan Adhi Perdana Putri Research Centre for Population, Indonesian Institute of Sciences. Email: intanadhi@gmail.com Atika Zahra, Imam Syafii, Dedi Adhuri, Mochammad Nadjib & Triyanto. Economic Research Centre, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Centre for Political Studies, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Research Centre for Society and Culture, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Research Centre for Limnology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences. ABSTRACT Protecting mangrove forest is essential because the numerous of its ecosystem services, particularly over coastal communities, rely on the mangrove. Deforestation on mangrove forest not only affected the community's welfare but also increased the risk from disasters such as tsunami, storm surges, tidal flood, etc. The loss of mangrove forest occurred in Langkat Regency, North Sumatera, Indonesia. Massive land-use change from mangrove forest to palm oil plantation commence in 2000, resulting in significant loss of fishermen income and environmental degradation. Langkat case is unique and exciting because of the community in 3 subdistricts against the oil palm corporation by doing a movement to rehabilitate mangrove area. The final action was in 2010 when communities broke down the palm oil dike in a field, which called Register 8/L, that was a mangrove area. After the movement of successfully 'reclaimed' the land by gaining the right to manage the mangrove through Community forest (Hutan Kemasyarakatan/ Hkm) scheme, the next challenge is the appearing of conflict among mangrove forest community. This paper aims to diagnose the practical and holistic policies to overcome the issues that arise after the movement. Also, to improve the coastal community's welfare through Collaborative governance approach called Fish-collab, a toolkit developed by Ross et al. (2018). This holistic collaborative mangrove governance model covers mapping of stakeholder involved in governing mangrove forest include community, government, non-government organizations (NGOs) dan private sector. The collaborative model produces seven strategies, including the stakeholders who http://dx.doi.org/10.222.99/arpap/2019.60