The Ganabai Indigenous Community of Gwardakau Village, Aru Tengah District, and the Ngaiguli Indigenous Community of Ngaiguli Village, Aru Selatan District, live in the coastal areas of the Aru Islands, specifically on Maekor Island and Tarangan Island. For generations, the Ganabai and Ngaiguli Indigenous Communities have depended on marine resources for their livelihoods. They catch fish, shrimp, crab, squid, and other crops, as well as produce from their Customary Forests through the cultivation of secondary crops, coffee, hardwood, and the processing of crafts from forest products managed traditionally. In addition, the communities also have poultry and pig farms. This demonstrates that the social and economic life of Indigenous Communities is highly dependent on the sustainable management of marine ecosystems and customary forests in their customary territories.

However, there are problems in each Indigenous Community, such as the Ganabai Indigenous Community which has "advice" or a fairly large customary territory, but to date, it lacks a customary territory map. This makes them highly vulnerable to the loss of their customary rights due to its location directly adjacent to a fishing company. Meanwhile, the Ngaiguli Indigenous Community has had a customary territory map and a community profile since 2014, but has not yet proposed a Regent's Decree on the Recognition of Customary Territory.

This situation has encouraged the Ganabai and Ngaiguli Indigenous Communities to continue fighting for the recognition of their customary land and sea territories by holding demonstrations and demanding action from the Regional Government. It is hoped that the issuance of the Aru Islands Regent's Decree on the determination of customary territories will help the Indigenous Communities to improve the protection of their customary territories, including the biodiversity within them, such as the endemic birds of paradise that live in the Ganabai Customary Forest, and the Indigenous Communities can build and manage their customary territories independently, fairly, and sustainably. Furthermore, the long history of conflict in the Aru Islands related to customary territories has also had an impact and is detrimental to the Indigenous Communities because there is no agreed-upon customary territory boundary.

Therefore, to strengthen the recognition of their customary territories, the Ngaiguli Indigenous Community and the Ganabai Indigenous Community are encouraging initiatives to conduct participatory mapping and recognition of their customary territories, which will have an impact on the certainty of the extent of each community's customary territory, the existence of social recognition by other neighboring customary communities so as to prevent boundary conflicts or the possibility of overlapping, and the confidence and sense of security of each Indigenous Community to manage their customary territories. The extent of customary territory mapping in both Indigenous Communities has an impact of up to 83.045 hectares.