Preservation of Rammang-Rammang biodiversity: Questioning legal certainty of local community

Since the plan of marble mining activity initiated which potentially exploiting the Rammang-Rammang karst and its contained biodiversity, the Salenrang local community draws an act of rejection and initiates to protect its local area through establishing Rammang Rammang karst as a tourism object. After such an area became the main tourist destination, the district government began trying to be the dominating actor on the management of the area by planning to withdraw retribution which draws attention since such policy does not involve the local community participation as the main actor of the tourism site. This article aims to encourage the implementation of legal certainty for local communities as the main actor for community-based tourism (CBT) that will be given right to manage its own local resources which based from the participatory rights guaranteed in Law No. 32 Year 2009, to fulfill the right to live and to get benefit from its natural resources guaranteed in the constitution of Indonesia. This research utilizes normative legal research by obtaining data from literature study and case study from Rammang-Rammang karst area and its local community. The result shows that there is an absence of legal protection on the recognition of Salenrang local community as the primary manager of the Rammang-Rammang karst area which is essential to be enforced in order to implement the effort of community empowerment for sustainable tourism.