<![CDATA[Bukit Lawang, the main gateway to Gunung Leuser National Park and a UNESCO World Heritage in Danger site since 2011, faces a structural waste crisis caused by the limited capacity of the Langkat Regency Government to manage tourism waste independently and sustainably. This qualitative case study analyzes the root environmental problems, the form of cooperation, and the implementation of the Recycling Village program between the Langkat Regency Government and Project Wings, using in-depth interviews with six key informants, participatory observation, and document analysis across the 2020-2025 period, analyzed through Keohane and Nye's Complex Interdependence framework. Findings show the crisis stems from a triple institutional misfit (spatial, temporal, and functional), that cooperation was informal for five years (2020-2025) and highly asymmetrical in financing yet persists due to distributed asymmetrical interdependence, and that the program converted more than 35 tons of plastic waste into over 70,000 ecobricks used to build eight functional structures. The study concludes that a complementary, interest-based transnational partnership effectively fills local government's capacity gap in managing environmental issues bound to an international accountability regime. Keywords: transnational cooperation, complex interdependence, waste management, World Heritage Site, Recycling Village, Bukit Lawang.]]>
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