Research

INTRODUCTION

Over much of the past century, fisheries management was characterized by a centralized structure in which (1) a uniform, top-down approach was implemented, (2) based on efforts to control complex and diverse systems of aquatic species, harvesting fleets, supply chain actors, and human communities, and (3) designed with limited decision-making power for those directly involved in fishing (Charles 1994, 2012). After decades of centralization in fisheries management, calls to include stakeholders and rightsholders over the past 30 years (e.g., Charles 1994) have led to a variety of changes in fisheries management regimes around the world. Although these changes can broadly be summarized as a move toward “co-management” as an umbrella term, defined as “the sharing of power and responsibility between government and resource users” (Berkes et al. 1991:12), it has been argued that co-management varies along two axes: (1) the degree to which decision making is shared between the government and harvesters, and (2) if and how co-management is implemented across the various functional components of the management process (Puley and Charles 2022). These different forms range from enhanced consultation, to knowledge co-production at the science-policy interface, to true decentralization and power-sharing via co-management, giving harvesters, processors, and communities a clear stake in the sustainability of the resource (Pinkerton 1989, Berkes et al. 1991)

Within the ongoing evolution of fisheries management practices toward various forms of co-management, knowledge inclusion from diverse stakeholders and rightsholders is a key means through which multiple sustainability goals (including those relating to ecological, economic, social, and institutional dimensions) and more effective governance may be achieved (De Young et al. 2008, Garcia 2008, Stephenson et al. 2017, Foley et al. 2020). In industrialized countries, where fisheries management remains largely centralized, there are nonetheless small steps toward more holistic fisheries assessments and more extensive participation. For example, in Canada, an advisory committee for a given fish stock (or set of stocks) is formed to engage stakeholders and rightsholders beyond the formal science advising process (Soomai 2017a, 2017b, Hamelin et al. 2023). In addition, the relevance of rightsholder and stakeholder contributions has been highlighted in the amended Canadian Fisheries Act (2019, c.14, s.3; “Considerations for decision-making”), the primary piece of legislation governing fisheries in Canada, which now explicitly cites “community knowledge” as one of the possible decision-making criteria informing fisheries management, distinct from and in addition to “Indigenous knowledge,” “scientific information,” and “social, economic, and cultural factors,” among other considerations.

However, the Act does not define the term “community knowledge,” and there appears to be no formalized working definition within the federal management agency, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), leading to the key question: who comprises the “community(ies)” holding relevant knowledge? There are a wide range of definitions of “community” within the social sciences, which are highly contextual, but generally encapsulate “a set of interrelationships among social institutions in a locality” (Bell and Newby 1975:19). Presumably these communities would include and perhaps center fish harvesters, but a “community” with the knowledge to inform fisheries management need not be defined so narrowly. In their investigation of the anthropological scope of fishing communities, Clay and Olson (2008) identified five key themes in conceptualizing fishing communities: visible connection to the industry (via vessels, gear, infrastructure), connections between land-based and at-sea networks, kinship playing a role in the labor process, multiple household and family-level ties to fishing, and the persistence of a cultural connection to fishing. However, they note that there are “awkward incongruities between the anthropological emphasis on situational meaning and legal demands for exactness” in applying this definition in a policy context (Clay and Olson 2008:29). Others (e.g., Ross, 2015) reference fishing “communities of the mind” per Pahl (2005), i.e., communities characterized by the thoughts and feelings of those who belong to them. This draws from contemporary community research that defines a community less as a discrete “object” and more as something that is enacted or carried out (Liepins 2000, Pahl 2005, Crow 2008, Ross 2015), perhaps also in line with notions of “communities of practice.” Liepins (2000) cautions that this complexity in describing a community has not been adequately considered in social studies and policy discourse.

In defining the community, there are implications for which rightsholders and stakeholders are perceived to hold “community knowledge.” A stakeholder can be defined broadly as someone who gets benefits from the fishery, is concerned about fishery issues, and/or has a role to play in managing or making decisions regarding the fishery. Here, we recognize rightsholders as a distinct group with inherent and/or legal rights to resource access; e.g., in Canada, rightsholders are Indigenous Peoples. In many contexts, including within DFO, stakeholders and some rightsholders are referenced under the umbrella term “industry,” which seems to refer broadly to members of the commercial fishing sector, but notably may exclude other key types of fish harvesters (e.g., “Aboriginal fisheries” and “recreational fisheries” are other categories under DFO jurisdiction). Given the various ways to define a community, it is thus unclear when or if harvesters should be engaged as representatives of a commercial sector, a sociocultural group, a regional or municipal populace, or some combination of these categories. Analogous legislation in the United States, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, defines a fishing community as “... a community which is substantially dependent on or substantially engaged in the harvest or processing of fishery resources to meet social or economic needs, and includes fishing vessel owners, operators, and crew and United States fish processors that are based in such community” (H.R. 5126, 116^th Congress). Efforts have been made to compile a database of fishing communities in the United States based on a variety of such characteristics (Sepez et al. 2006). However, it has been argued by others that all Canadians have a stake in the state of fisheries within our national jurisdiction, as stipulated in the Oceans Act (S.C. 1996, c.31), which identifies Canadian territory within the Arctic, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans as “the common heritage of all Canadians.” This suggests that the community informing fisheries management decisions might be very broad indeed.

In addition to the “who” in understanding community knowledge, the “what” matters as well: what kind of relevant knowledge can a community hold and contribute? Like Hakkarainen et al. (2020:282), here we draw from a constructive social science epistemology and define knowledge as “justified belief that is used to claim a truth and determined by acceptance of that truth in a particular context” (Van Kerkhoff and Lebel 2006, Jacobson 2007). Notably, how the community is defined will affect the type(s) of knowledge they are believed to hold, the contributions they can make to decision-making evidence, and their ability to participate in consultative, collaborative, or community-led management processes.

If our definition of the communities in question centers fish harvesters, their knowledge might be highlighted as key. Fishers’ knowledge has been of interest to researchers for decades, beginning with work pioneered by amateur historians, embraced by ethnographers, expanded by social scientists, and eventually applied by ecologists and oceanographers (Hind 2015, Stephenson et al. 2016). Indeed, a great deal of data used to support fisheries management in Canada currently comes from the harvesting sector itself (Hamelin et al. 2023). However, it is important to note that, regardless of how broadly the community is defined, valuable knowledge can take many forms, and is not simply a data source, given that knowledge might be expressed via transmission, practice, beliefs, values, and adaptation (Giles et al. 2016). The extent to which community knowledge is considered or mobilized in fisheries management will likely be a function of the power-sharing in the governance regime in question. Furthermore, given that Indigenous knowledge is recognized separately in the Fisheries Act, it is clear that community knowledge can come from non-Indigenous communities, however Indigenous communities nonetheless possess community knowledge as well and thus the communities referenced in the Act might include groups of individuals across sociopolitical contexts.

Given that not all criteria referenced in the Fisheries Act need to be evaluated or considered every (or any) time a management decision is made in Canada, questions remain about when, how, and to what end these communities should be engaged in current fisheries management protocols. When does it matter most, presumably with the ultimate goal of achieving objectives for Canadian fisheries management, such as those identified by Stephenson et al. (2019)? Questions raised above about the Canadian context might be best informed by practices and guidelines from elsewhere in the world, and in turn, insights gleaned here in Canada might inform efforts toward co-management in all its forms in other jurisdictions. To that end, this study involved a scoping literature review to investigate what community knowledge might entail, as it pertains to fisheries management, and who the relevant communities might be. This study identifies under what conditions community knowledge can influence fisheries management and the outcome of these impacts (e.g., Where and when has it been used? What was done? What was the outcome?). Recommendations are compiled for practices that could guide efforts, including those in Canada, to engage with communities toward the goal of full-spectrum sustainability for our fisheries and in keeping with legislation around the multiple inputs required for evidence-based decision making.

METHODS

Literature search

The Scopus academic database was used to find relevant articles for a scoping review. We determined that this database would offer a wide variety of sources and an ability to narrow the search with a great degree of specificity. To develop appropriate search terms for a scoping analysis, an iterative process was used to identify documents about community knowledge in fisheries management. This involved a broad search to identify possible key words, narrowing down the key words to those most relevant, and a final targeted search to obtain papers for review (Fig. 1). The search procedure was conducted on 31 January 2023 and the final search yielded 824 results, sorted by Scopus into a list ranked by greatest inclusion of the search terms. The first 100 ranked articles within the scope of the study with full-text article versions available were compiled for analysis, representing the 100 most relevant papers based on the search terms used (Appendix 1). We recognize that focusing on academic literature excluded management reports, NGO reports, and other technical papers that may have offered unique perspectives on community knowledge in fisheries. Furthermore, as Anglophone researchers, we recognize that the English-language literature reviewed here represents only a portion of disseminated findings in this field, given its global scope. However, the papers we reviewed included a wide range of on-topic studies that could be analyzed in a systematized way, yielding relevant insights for our purposes.

Literature review

The final 100 papers selected for analysis were compiled and uploaded to NVivo Qualitative Analysis Software (https://lumivero.com/products/nvivo/). Within NVivo, each paper was read in its entirety to deductively code for and compile (where relevant and available) the following information: (1) management context, (2) list of community members, (3) reference to community knowledge, (4) engagement methods, (5) enablers, (6) barriers, (7) outcomes, and (8) recommendations (Table 1).

Data analysis

R Statistical Computing Software (R Core Development Team 2022) was used to visualize the compiled literature with respect to publications over time, publications by journal, and publications by geographic region to describe the breadth of the literature evaluated here. Qualitative content analysis was conducted on the remainder of the data collection categories to synthesize key findings with an inductive approach. In some cases, for exploratory purposes, the word cloud function in NVivo was used to visualize key concepts within each theme, where words were sized proportionately to frequency (settings: 1000 most frequent words, minimum word length = 3 letters, grouped with synonyms). Key findings from the “outcomes” theme, specifically, were further sorted according to the four pillars of sustainability frequently referenced in fisheries management (Charles 1994, Foley et al. 2020), to link specific study outcomes to larger scale sustainability objectives for fisheries management more broadly. Inspired by Giles et al. (2016), the enablers and barriers discussed here were sorted into three categories, which have previously been used to summarize challenges in knowledge exchange practices: (1) conceptual, (2) logistical, and (3) communication factors. Recommendations identified within the articles reviewed were compiled according to three components that reflect how community knowledge could be operationalized in fisheries management in a quasi-chronological order: (1) setting up the system, (2) working together, and (3) achieving results.

RESULTS

Summary of literature

The articles analyzed here were published between 1991 and 2023, with an increasing trend in the number of articles published over time (Fig. 2), reflecting both recent interest in this subject matter and likely increased publication rates for academic articles in general. These articles represented 39 academic journals, and the largest number were published in Marine Policy (n = 33 / 100) or Ocean and Coastal Management (n = 12 / 100), with < 5 from any other journal. Top fisheries journals (e.g., Fish and Fisheries) had notably fewer papers than one might expect, whereas the most prevalent journals, although not fisheries-specific, may represent venues likely to publish research on work from the social sciences relevant to community work, policy, and management in fisheries. In terms of geographic region, the largest number of studies was based in or focused on Asia (n = 31 / 100), with North America (n = 17 / 100), Europe (n = 13 / 100), Oceania (n = 11 / 100) also featuring large numbers of studies, and < 10 articles highlighting other regions of the world (Fig. 3). Although most articles focused on a particular country, with USA (n = 10 / 100), Bangladesh (n = 7 / 100), Brazil (n = 6 / 100), Philippines (n = 5 / 100), and Canada (n = 4 / 100) the most prevalent, the largest single category of articles comprised synthesis or case study articles that covered multiple countries from a given region or from around the globe (n = 20 / 100). In terms of subject matter and approach, the articles fell largely into two categories: (1) research studies that explored possible inputs or contributions from communities to the process of fisheries management, and (2) studies that evaluated outcomes and implications from actual community inputs to (or community-led) fisheries management.

Management context

To begin crafting a working understanding of community knowledge from the literature, we needed to explore the types of management regimes represented in our search results. The articles covered a wide scope of management contexts, ranging from small- to large-scale fisheries in developing to developed economies. Although we refer to these binaries (e.g., “developed” vs. “developing,” Global North vs. Global South) here for ease of exposition, we fully acknowledge that they do not do justice to the nuance and spectrum of development status, assets, and capabilities that exist. Some articles focused on assessing implementation of, or compliance to, new fisheries laws or management plans (e.g., Mulekom 1999, Satria and Matsuda 2004, Owusu et al. 2023), including multinational agreements such as “Brexit” (Appleby and Harrison 2015). A large number focused on recommending, documenting, or evaluating community co-management as a fisheries management approach, either in contrast to centralized management approaches, or alongside or embedded within Indigenous or traditional practices and institutions (e.g., Pomeroy 1991, Noble 2000, Pomeroy et al. 2001, Rab 2009, Pinho et al. 2012, McGrath et al. 2015, Yang and Pomeroy 2017, Montgomery and Vaughan 2018, Zucchetti Schons et al. 2020). A wide range of terms were used to describe these projects or initiatives, including community-based management (CBM; e.g., Alpizar 2006), community marine spatial planning (CMSP; e.g., Morzaria-Luna et al. 2020), community-based resource management (CBRM; e.g., Pomeroy 1995), community-based coastal resource management (CBCRM; e.g., Maliao et al. 2009), community-based fisheries management (CBFM; e.g., Mustafa 2009, Nasuchon and Charles 2010, Kabir et al. 2013, Léopold et al. 2013), co-management-based organizations (CBO; Kabir et al. 2013), or participatory fisheries management arrangements (PFMA; Leite and Pita 2016). A large number of such studies were based in Southeast Asia, where concentrated efforts to shift to community-based co-management have taken place in countries like the Philippines.

Many studies were more local and place based, with research occurring in a small-scale or subsistence fisheries context (e.g., Hviding and Baines 1994, Kuperan and Abdullah 1994, Ruddle 1998, Harris et al. 2002, Geheb and Crean 2003, Ahmed et al. 2013, Aswani et al. 2013, Leite and Gasalla 2013, Guanais et al. 2015, Herrera-Racionero et al. 2015, Nakhshina 2016, Gauvreau et al. 2017, Mendoza et al. 2022), whereas others were national case studies from more industrialized locations (e.g., implications of individual transferable quotas [ITQs] or science-policy protocols in the Global North; Charles 1997, Eythórsson 2000, Hawkins 2002, van Hoof 2010, Yagi et al. 2012, Chambers and Kokorsch 2017, Soomai 2017b, Tirrell 2017), or international in scope (e.g., discussing membership status in regional fisheries management organizations [RFMOs]; Edeson 2006, Lodge 2006, Dong and Guo 2022). The concept of fish harvesters and other stakeholders organizing into labor unions, community organizations, and other forms of advocacy or decision-making institutions was referenced regularly (e.g., Ruddle 1998, Mulekom 1999, Sutinen and Johnston 2003, Lieng et al. 2018). Additional topics of interest included health and safety in the fisheries industry (e.g., Kaplan and Kite-Powell 2000, Oerther 2022); the integration of recreational fishing into management, typically in developed countries (e.g., Gray et al. 2012, Hamelin et al. 2022); the rise of ecosystem-based approaches (e.g., Berghöfer et al. 2008, Le Heron et al. 2008, Fletcher et al. 2016, Mattingley et al. 2016, Dell'Apa et al. 2020, Boubekri et al. 2022, Sari et al. 2022); implications of marine protected area establishment (e.g., Lowry et al. 2009, Batista et al. 2011, Weigel et al. 2014, McNeill et al. 2019, Salvadeo et al. 2021); and relationships between fisheries and human well-being, culture, and socioeconomic factors (e.g., Curry 2007, Sekhar 2007, Santha 2008, Feeney 2013, Ounanian 2019, Szymkowiak and Kasperski 2021), including gender (Calhoun et al. 2016, Ikechukwu Uduji and Okolo-obasi 2020, Mangubhai and Lawless 2021). The primary ways of doing research on communities involved in fisheries management were via interviews or surveys/questionnaires (typically of a semi-structured format), or via (comparative) case study analysis. In other cases, participatory action research or observation strategies were used.

Exploring “community”

Recognizing the myriad management regimes involved in fisheries management globally, a wide range of individuals and groups were referenced in the studies, comprising candidate “communities” or “community members” to be involved in management. Generally, these community members could be divided into two primary categories depending on whether they had relevance to management (1) via their role in the fishing industry and (2) via their role as residents in a place-based community where fishing takes place (Fig. 4). These two categories do not necessarily represent a discrete dichotomy, and there was particular overlap in how fish harvesters are positioned as either or both members of an industry and members of a place-based community. In considering prevalence of particular individuals and groups within the literature, fishers/fishermen and government/management are evident as two dominant groups, depicting an overarching image of fisheries management as a bilateral exchange between resource harvesters and resource managers (see, e.g., Jentoft 2000). Representatives, organizations, industry, and associations are also key players, representing the importance of the collective, and the fact that certain leaders representing these collectives are usually engaged in collaborative research or management initiatives. Less frequently, additional industry members and supply chain actors or workers (e.g., processing) were also consulted.

Though less numerous, a meaningful category of articles focused more holistically on feedback or insights from the place-based community in which the fishing activity took place, usually referred to as “households,” “residents,” or the “village” in the context of rural, developing nations, with “Elders” and “Chiefs” noted in certain contexts with customary / Indigenous governance systems. In this subset of papers, the community encompassed a variety of, or all, individuals directly or indirectly connected to the fishery, defined by their social connections, including family, friends, and peers of harvesters. Notably, these studies tended to include a greater consideration of the role of “women” and “family.”

“Researchers” and “scientists” involved in collaborative work were also noted. Although these groups would have valuable feedback to share on community partnerships, they most often belonged neither to the fishing industry, nor the place-based or sociopolitical community directly affected by fisheries management decisions, including (although not necessarily) instances of Western researchers working in other parts of the world. Likewise, staff and representatives of “NGOs” were also referenced. Again, although certainly playing a meaningful role as stakeholders in fisheries management, whether these individuals belong to the community affected by fisheries management is debatable, as they often originated from different geopolitical or sociocultural settings, arriving in a fishing community to launch a program or build capacity.

Examining “knowledge”

Contributions solicited from or provided by community members were frequently referred to as “local knowledge.” Within this body of knowledge, there were community contributions from across the data-information-knowledge-wisdom spectrum (per Ackoff 1989, Rowley 2007), ranging from simple measurements and data inputs (“catch,” “species,” “size”) to highly contextual and embodied knowledge (e.g., “learning,” “trust,” “opinions,” “values”). “Knowledge” as a data input tended to be more compatible with dominant science (per Liboiron 2021) methodologies that frequently dominate fishery assessment protocols across geopolitical contexts. A proportion of the studies focused on harvesters and other community members as sources of information, and their knowledge as data inputs, however as management protocols moved from the consultation to the co-management end of the spectrum, there was a shift from considering knowledge as “data” to knowledge as a practice. “Knowledge as a practice” often involved stakeholders or rightsholders sharing their perspectives and preferences with respect to management strategies and governance regimes.

The role of community across dimensions of sustainability

Outcomes of the studies reviewed here were sometimes outcomes from research projects and sometimes evaluations of management actions in practice. In considering the goal of full-spectrum sustainability for fisheries, we have identified ecological, economic, social, and institutional outcomes (Fig. 5). Here, we considered ecological sustainability to relate to the resilience of the fishery target species and surrounding ecosystem. Economic sustainability was associated with both financial viability and equity with respect to costs and benefits of participation. Social sustainability involved cultural vitality, social cohesion, and individual and community well-being. Institutional sustainability was interpreted to mean functional and fair governance practices. With respect to ecological sustainability, a variety of studies documented increased trust in or legitimacy of biological or ecological research by communities (e.g., Gray et al. 2012, Morzaria-Luna et al. 2020), including in support of conservation initiatives (e.g., Marine Protected Areas [MPAs]; Kuperan and Abdullah 1994, Weigel et al. 2014, Chitará-Nhandimo et al. 2022). This stemmed from, and perhaps resulted in, increased use of local or traditional ecological knowledge (e.g., Leite and Gasalla 2013, Gauvreau et al. 2017, Bulengela et al. 2020), or instating local monitoring programs (e.g., Pomeroy 1995). There were mixed results on whether more participatory scientific research protocols led to better conservation outcomes from an ecological point of view, at least on the time frames documented, although conservation outcomes were frequently listed as objectives for studies or management interventions. Ultimately, within this body of research, there were a variety of attempts to integrate data sources, test approaches, and apply frameworks toward ecologically sustainable fisheries or toward a more holistic goal of integrated sustainability, i.e., more resilient social-ecological systems more broadly.

To that end, many study results focused on social outcomes for the communities in question. Frequently, concerns held by rightsholders or stakeholders were identified and sometimes even addressed through the research process. As a result, the myriad relationships between and implications of fisheries (and their associated management mechanisms) for individual and community well-being were illuminated. Generally, having community input or even leadership in fisheries management led to increased compliance with regulations (e.g., Weigel et al. 2014, Yang and Pomeroy 2017, Owusu et al. 2023), and thus fewer conflicts and associated social costs (e.g., van Hoof 2010, Yang and Pomeroy 2017). However, while many community-related initiatives found enhanced cohesion among diverse stakeholders and rightsholders as a result of increased collaboration or participation (e.g., Sekhar 2007, Rab 2009, Aswani et al. 2013, Barclay et al. 2017), there were other instances in which the divergent motivations and values within and between groups, and conflict among heterogeneous individuals, communities, and sectors brought together, were documented (e.g., Alpizar 2006, Herrera-Racionero et al. 2015). Overall, however, a greater awareness of local customs, motivations, and perceptions was often the result of the research (e.g., Aswani 2005, Curry 2007, Sekhar 2007, Pinho et al. 2012, Yagi et al. 2012, River et al. 2015, Barclay et al. 2017, Gauvreau et al. 2017, Grace-McCaskey 2018, Liao et al. 2019, Szymkowiak and Kasperski 2021, Hamelin et al. 2022).

In the papers we reviewed, this awareness led to outcomes with implications for institutional dimensions of sustainability. Conflicts of jurisdiction between centralized versus localized management authorities were documented (e.g., Ruddle 1998, Satria and Matsuda 2004, Mpomwenda et al. 2022). Documenting changes to laws and policies, including decentralization processes, i.e., moving toward a form of community co-management, was a common topic, with mixed results, including some of the positive outcomes described thus far, but also sometimes limitations stemming from lack of capacity or lack of integration with other legal structures, community development initiatives, or local customs (e.g., Mulekom 1999, Nasuchon and Charles 2010, Leite and Pita 2016, Morzaria-Luna et al. 2020). In some of these cases, the outcome of the research was simply documenting some of these capacity needs to support decentralization to communities, or to address inconsistencies or implement new ideas for linking policies and practices to enhance operationalization of management plans (e.g., Geheb and Crean 2003, Feeney 2013, Carlson et al. 2019, Elvarsson et al. 2020). Frequently, a positive outcome toward institutional sustainability was social organizing within communities to support participation, advocacy, and leadership (e.g., Hviding and Baines 1994, Pomeroy 1995, Brown and Pomeroy 1999, Sutinen and Johnston 2003, Pinho et al. 2012, Ounanian 2019, Zucchetti Schons et al. 2020).

Finally, economic outcomes were less frequently discussed, but nonetheless were an undercurrent in many of the outcomes discussed above. There were overall mixed findings with respect to equity in access and benefits from fisheries in the literature, with some studies concluding that management led or informed by communities increased incomes or economic equity/benefit-sharing (e.g., Amarasinghe and De Silva 1999, Dominguez-Torreiro et al. 2004, Maliao et al. 2009, Yang and Pomeroy 2017), while others documented perpetuation of inequitable access (e.g., Tirrell 2017), or the research illuminated injustices previously ignored or underappreciated (e.g., Eythórsson 2000, Calhoun et al. 2016, Hossain and Rabby 2019, Ikechukwu Uduji and Okolo-obasi 2020, Marin-Monroy et al. 2020, Mangubhai and Lawless 2021, Oerther 2022). The cost of conservation (e.g., MPAs) was also documented in a variety of cases (e.g., Kaplan and Kite-Powell 2000, Batista et al. 2011, McNeill et al. 2019, Boubekri et al. 2022). Generally, research within the field of fisheries management tends to be short-term, with relatively few longitudinal studies through the process of decentralization, or from knowledge production through to its uptake, implementation, and evaluation. Furthermore, we identified more outcomes oriented toward social and institutional sustainability, which perhaps reflects the greatest concerns of community-based fisheries management researchers or their participants. However, we acknowledge that distinctions among the “pillars” may be somewhat subjective and there are likely relationships between and among various sustainability outcomes.

Setting the stage for success

Enablers and barriers to successful community knowledge engagement in fisheries management were sorted according to the way in which they could be operationalized: conceptual, logistical, and communication factors, a comprehensive list of which is included in Table 2, and summarized here. Conceptually, building and maintaining respect (e.g., Brown and Pomeroy 1999), trust, and a spirit of cooperation (e.g., Amarasinghe and De Silva 1999, Jentoft 2000, Noble 2000, Sekhar 2007, Nasuchon and Charles 2010, Aswani and Ruddle 2013, Liao et al. 2019) based on local relevance and a shared vision/objectives (e.g., Noble 2000, Hawkins 2002, Leite and Gasalla 2013, Weigel et al. 2014) among all participants were enablers. A social normative rationale (e.g., Jentoft 2000, Santha 2008) and political will (e.g., Satria and Matsuda 2004, Nasuchon and Charles 2010, Owusu et al. 2023) in an arena with perceived legitimacy and accountability (e.g., Kuperan and Abdullah 1994, Pomeroy et al. 2001, Berghöfer et al. 2008, Weigel et al. 2014, Lieng et al. 2018) were also important. Bringing a holistic (e.g., Noble 2000, Ahmed et al. 2013, Barclay et al. 2017, Oerther 2022), inclusive, open approach (e.g., Noble 2000, Guanais et al. 2015, Mangubhai and Lawless 2021) to shared spaces helped facilitate community contributions and leadership as well. Conceptual barriers, on the other hand, included a lack of trust in authorities (e.g., Mulekom 1999, Kaplan and Kite-Powell 2000, Hamelin et al. 2022; sometimes stemming from unbalanced power relations or unfairness in allocation/enforcement), conflicts between community development and conservation (e.g., Brown and Pomeroy 1999, Ahmed et al. 2013, Weigel et al. 2014, Owusu et al. 2023), inappropriate generalizations made across fishery sectors or between heterogeneous communities (e.g., Lowry et al. 2009, Freitag et al. 2018, Grace-McCaskey 2018, Tokunaga et al. 2019), and overall risk aversion or inflexibility to try something new or change existing management structures (e.g., Sekhar 2007, Chambers and Kokorsch 2017).

Logistical enablers included scale match and clearly defined boundaries for ecosystems, communities, and management jurisdictions and processes (e.g., Charles 1997, Sutinen and Johnston 2003, Satria and Matsuda 2004, Berghöfer et al. 2008, Lowry et al. 2009). Further enablers included organized rightsholders and stakeholders with effective leadership, including both labor systems (e.g., fishing associations, unions) and more traditional customary structures with strong local participation (e.g., elders and youth; e.g., Pomeroy 1991, 1995, Noble 2000, Pomeroy et al. 2001, Soomai 2017b, Montgomery and Vaughan 2018). Contingent on adequate budgets, investments in capacity-building for the community were also a predictor of success, including suitable technical and human resources, and training to ensure skills and expertise for planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluation (e.g., Pomeroy et al. 2001, Harris et al. 2002, Lowry et al. 2009, Rab 2009, Grace-McCaskey 2018, Dong and Guo 2022). Ideally, management systems will both demand long-term commitments and investments (e.g., Noble 2000), and allow for an iterative, adaptive process (e.g., Hviding and Baines 1994, Weigel et al. 2014, Soomai 2017b). Community participation typically works best when fisheries management structures and protocols work synergistically with existing community institutions and other development initiatives (e.g., Jentoft 2000, Alpizar 2006, Lieng et al. 2018).

In contrast, logistically, centralized fisheries management agencies distant from communities affected by their decisions pose a challenge to community involvement (e.g., Jentoft 2000, Satria and Matsuda 2004, Herrera-Racionero et al. 2015), but likewise, decentralization without proper policies or adequate resources to ensure effective communication and implementation can lead to problems (e.g., Soomai 2017b). The time and resources required, particularly upfront costs, to build community capacity may act as a barrier to community involvement and leadership in fisheries management (Sekhar 2007, Lowry et al. 2009), particularly in developing or remote settings (e.g., Satria and Matsuda 2004, Alpizar 2006, Ahmed et al. 2013, Lieng et al. 2018). Changes in demographics, socioeconomic factors, or institutional environment (e.g., population growth, technological development) can cause difficulties (e.g., Alpizar 2006, Maliao et al. 2009), and communities where there has been a loss of traditional knowledge or customary institutions, such as those with a colonial history, are at a disadvantage (e.g., Pomeroy 1995, Satria and Matsuda 2004, Gauvreau et al. 2017). Even local organizations may perpetuate existing power imbalances, wealth discrepancies, and historical injustices within and between communities (Eythórsson 2000, Alpizar 2006, Lowry et al. 2009).

With respect to communication, strong social networks and opportunities for relationship-building, shared learning, and mentorship were enablers (e.g., Lowry et al. 2009, Hossain and Rabby 2019). Underlying this must be a sense of social cohesion and solidarity, with a willingness to participate in collective action as well as respect for pluralism, particularly with respect to diverse knowledge types (e.g., Ruddle 1998, Jentoft 2000, Noble 2000, Pomeroy et al. 2001, Gauvreau et al. 2017, Jyotishi et al. 2020, López-Juambeltz et al. 2020). Making clear the benefits of participating, or having self-evident benefits emerge during the process, were motivators for community members to engage (e.g., Pomeroy 1995, Schreiber 2001, Lieng et al. 2018). However, this ideally comes along with clarity and consistency in acceptable rules, procedures, and schedules for how the participation or collaboration will take place (e.g., Pomeroy et al. 2001, Hawkins 2002, Weigel et al. 2014, Lieng 2018, Tokunaga et al. 2019). In some cases, having access to outside conflict resolution resources may be helpful (e.g., Lowry et al. 2009). In contrast, “depersonalized” relationships within an environment of normative confusion (e.g., Hviding and Baines 1994, Eythórsson 2000, Jentoft 2000, Lowry et al. 2009, Salvadeo et al. 2021) or delegates/leaders who are not representative of the community can pose barriers for community participation and leadership (e.g., Sutinen and Johnston 2003, Berghöfer et al. 2008), in addition to problems stemming from influential forces external to the community (e.g., Hviding and Baines 1994, Schreiber 2001, Lowry et al. 2009, Maliao et al. 2009, Hossain and Rabby 2019).

Recommendations

Recommendations for management officials, community members / leaders, or researchers were frequently shared in the studies reviewed. In fact, some articles reviewed were, themselves, syntheses conducted with the goal of making recommendations for fisheries management (e.g., Weigel et al. 2014, Montgomery and Vaughan 2018). Across the board, studies generally recommended devolving fisheries management to the local level to at least some degree. In coding these recommendations, we observed a “chronological” element, in that they tended to fall into three main stages in the process of designing an engagement or participatory process: (1) considerations when setting up the system, (2) guidance for working together, and (3) advice for achieving results, i.e., positive outcomes, recognizing that what is positive will depend on the fishery objectives specific to the system in question (Fig. 6). In setting up the system, many papers in our collection asserted that the defined community in question should be centered from the beginning, so they may take a proactive role, and such that the process will be grounded in local wisdom, including traditional or experiential understandings as well as local values (e.g., Jentoft 2000, Kaplan and Kite-Powell 2000, Hawkins 2002, Nasuchon and Charles 2010, Batista et al. 2011, Kabir et al. 2013, Dong and Guo 2022). In order to attain the trust required to even begin such a process, other papers recommended that the perception of fairness, e.g., via equitable and allocation of resources, be a priority: equity in both process and outcomes matters (e.g., Hawkins 2002). Given that the process must be responsive, adaptive, and iterative (as opposed to linear; e.g., Nasuchon and Charles 2010, Fletcher et al. 2016, Soomai 2017b, Dell'Apa et al. 2020, Salvadeo et al. 2021, Sari et al. 2022), the literature asserts that there must be a willingness to plan and commit for the long-term (e.g., Schreiber 2001, Oerther 2022). Additional studies argue that it is important to acknowledge and analyze the costs of participation, secure external resources and assistance as needed, and perhaps to start with pilot projects until proof of concept can be established (e.g., Harris et al. 2002, Sutinen and Johnston 2003, Montgomery and Vaughan 2018).

According to the literature reviewed, working together requires an understanding that with rights come responsibilities and with obligations come benefits (e.g., Sekhar 2007, Montgomery and Vaughan 2018). Strengthening networks within and across community groups and agencies to move beyond bilateral relationships and empower local leadership is recommended (e.g., Brown and Pomeroy 1999, Mulekom 1999, Noble 2000, Pomeroy et al. 2001, Hossain et al. 2006, Sekhar 2007, Maliao et al. 2009, van Hoof 2010, Aswani and Ruddle 2013, Grace-McCaskey 2018, Tokunaga et al. 2019, Chitará-Nhandimo et al. 2022). In building such social connections, numerous articles assert that the identification of and inclusion of underrepresented rightsholders and stakeholders is essential, which may require investigating why they have been underserved in the first place (e.g., Barclay et al. 2017, Gauvreau et al. 2017, Marin-Monroy et al. 2020, Mpomwenda et al. 2022, Oerther 2022). Spaces for shared learning and discussion (e.g., Harris et al. 2002, Le Heron et al. 2008, Gray et al. 2012, Ahmed et al. 2013, Feeney 2013, Weigel et al. 2014, Herrera-Racionero et al. 2015, Nakhshina 2016, Lieng et al. 2018, Dell'Apa et al. 2020), and field workers willing to take a hands-on approach (Harris et al. 2002, Lowry et al. 2009), can assist in creating transparency, establishing trust, and building social capital.

Finally, across the literature, achieving goals involved meeting objectives of community concern (e.g., Ruddle 1998, Alpizar 2006, Léopold et al. 2013, Barclay et al. 2017, McNeill et al. 2019, Marin-Monroy et al. 2020), which typically requires holistic fisheries assessments (e.g., social impact assessments, not just ecological assessments; e.g., Harris et al. 2002, Aswani 2005, Berghöfer et al. 2008, Feeney 2013, Barclay et al. 2017, Chambers and Kokorsch 2017, Soomai 2017b, Boubekri et al. 2022, Hamelin et al. 2022). In order to move from idealistic to operational notions of community knowledge, an understanding of baselines and change / progress is essential (e.g., Charles 1997, Weigel et al. 2014, Liao et al. 2019). A broadening of the fishery system beyond “what men do on boats,” as Barclay et al. (2017) put it, will demand the inclusion of different sectors from the fishing industry (e.g., processing, sales, consumption) and more diverse stakeholders at the table (e.g., Indigenous rightsholders, women; e.g., Ikechukwu Uduji and Okolo-Obasi 2020, Mangubhai and Lawless 2021). The body of research reviewed here recommends recognition that community knowledge (in all its forms) and community values are dynamic and thus understandings and key goals and concerns may evolve over time (e.g., Leite and Gasalla 2013, Sari et al. 2022). Further, in decision-making processes, a number of articles argue that assumptions and trade-offs must be made explicit (e.g., Curry 2007, Berghöfer et al. 2008), and there must be an understanding of how governance institutions at different scales impact or influence one another (e.g., Grace-McCaskey 2018, Mpomwenda et al. 2022) in order to ensure trust and avoid losing social capital through the process. Crucially, across systems, recommendations were made to consider fisheries in the context of other social, ecological, economic, and governance goals in the community, e.g., to consider how fisheries are used as a tool for rural economic development, and to embed fisheries management systems more thoughtfully in existing local institutions working toward such goals (e.g., Hviding and Baines 1994, Jentoft 2000, Weigel et al. 2014, Lieng et al. 2018, López-Angarita et al. 2018).

DISCUSSION

In fisheries management, communities with relevant knowledge to fisheries management may comprise a wide range of individuals and groups, including local residents, stakeholders, rightsholders, and various experts. These communities hold myriad forms of knowledge, which may yield data or information for evidence-based decision making. Furthermore, they have important perceptions and preferences that may ensure fisheries governance reflects the values and experiences of those affected by management practices. Although a range of enablers and barriers influence the success of community involvement in fisheries management with respect to various conceptual, logistical, and communication-related dimensions, there are broad lessons to be learned and numerous relevant applications.

A community or an industry?

In many cases, the community members, stakeholders, participants, and other groups targeted for engagement in fisheries management were fish harvesters, based on their role as members of a commercial sector, and thus the fishing industry (i.e., those with a financial connection to fishing, including harvesters) does often define the community with desirable knowledge to inform management. This remains true, albeit sometimes to a lesser extent, in less industrialized settings. Some reports focused on fishers as a source of valuable biological or ecological data, which makes sense given the current and ongoing focus on biological stock assessment models as the evidence base for fisheries management decisions, despite ongoing criticism of this reliance on reductive natural science methodologies (see, e.g., Silver et al. 2022). Indeed, this local and traditional ecological knowledge, broadly, represents an invaluable source of information at a time when natural history experience and taxonomic skills are becoming more rare, in favor of skills for the realm of “big data” (see, e.g., Able 2016). However, despite recognition of its value, by most involved in fisheries, in practice, it has not always been operationalized to the extent that it could make a large impact (Hind 2015, Stephenson et al. 2016). Given that these individuals are defined by fishing as their livelihood, it was surprising that there was not more focus on “outcomes” toward economic sustainability, although this may reflect researcher / author perspectives more than those of the fishers themselves.

It should be noted that within groups of fishers, there was some nuance with respect to different community roles. For example, depending on the management regime, active harvesters and quota holders were not necessarily synonymous, and captains and crew faced different opportunities and challenges, leading to power differentials within the fishing sector, in addition to between stakeholder groups. There was also some divergence in how fishers were engaged from industrialized, highly professionalized fisheries (largely in the Global North) as opposed to recreational, or small-scale or subsistence fisheries (largely in the Global South), with highly organized, industrialized commercial fleets having more capacity to play a role as powerful stakeholders, albeit perhaps at the expense of the full richness of localized, place-based knowledge of the fishery, as described by Murray et al. (2006) in their characterization of “Globalized Harvester Knowledge.”

Importantly, the fishing industry goes beyond harvesters. There were a smaller number of cases in which buyers, processors, and other supply chain actors were engaged as key community members, but disproportionately few considering that they are surely key informants on socioeconomics of the fishery, impacts of governance regimes, and perhaps even biology of fishes (e.g., size distributions relating to life history). In some contexts (e.g., Canada), this disconnect may reflect an issue of jurisdiction, whereby fish harvest is managed federally, while fishery value chains and exports are largely managed by regional (i.e., provincial) agencies. Further, on the topic of scale, while community-based management has often been suggested as a means to serve sustainability goals in small-scale artisanal fisheries (Charles 1994), we argue that fisheries on a wide range of scales could receive such sociocultural benefits.

It is significant to note that communities, even fishing communities specifically, do not consist exclusively of the fishing industry—harvesters, supply chain actors, or otherwise. Members of the industry are also, simultaneously, residents of a place-based fishing community. Although less commonly engaged in research and management initiatives, these place-based communities also involve the social networks of individuals from the industry, i.e., families, friends, peers, and neighbors, in addition to others more tangentially tied to the fishing sector, but nonetheless located close to it in terms of social or geographic proximity.

Perhaps a more holistic definition of community would be to combine the implicit place-based nature given in the Magnuson-Stevens Act (which refers to fishery-related actors “based in such community”) with the definition derived from the Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines (and arguably applicable across fisheries of various scales; https://www.fao.org/voluntary-guidelines-small-scale-fisheries/en/). This could produce a definition of fisheries-dependent communities as place-based “communities whose livelihoods are dependent on the natural marine, coastal or inland resources, with people actively involved in harvesting, processing and/or selling the resources as a primary means of income; and whose social and cultural identity is integrated into these practices” [emphasis added] and specifically including “fisheries-dependent families, equally affected by the same vulnerabilities, livelihoods shocks and threats in the fishing sector” (FAO 2022:4).

Notably, there is a gendered component to this community focus, where many studies referencing “fishers” noted that participants were majority male, while studies referencing social networks more broadly included more women, given their important roles in post-harvest processing and administration. These trends have been explored elsewhere as well (see e.g., Neis et al. 2013, Frangoudes et al. 2020, Knott et al. 2022, Syddall et al. 2022). Thinking about fishing communities beyond “industry” leads to more diverse voices (who are potentially both highly knowledgeable and highly affected by fisheries management decisions, socioeconomically) being heard. It is interesting to note that, alongside “community knowledge” in Canada’s Fisheries Act, “the intersection of sex and gender” is also listed as a decision-making criterion for fisheries management, and thus there is potential overlap to achieve a win-win for inclusion by adopting a more holistic understanding of communities.

Finally, it is interesting to examine the role of scientists and NGO staff as potential community members, given that they sometimes facilitate grassroots local representation while at other times appear to be conducting “parachute” science or conservation work. There can be enormous potential for these groups to support fishing communities, through a community science approach (Charles et al. 2020) that builds a knowledge base and may give voice to underappreciated points of views, or even to play a larger role in bridging or broker advocacy positions (Cadman et al. 2020). However, these positive roles contrast with the risks of (sometimes unintended) negative approaches, which may result in “environmentality” (whereby a community adopts ecological values that undermine its own socioeconomic needs and sociocultural values; see, e.g., Quintana et al. 2020).

From inputs to engagement

In considering the community knowledge held by the community members described above, it is important to recognize the data-information-knowledge-wisdom spectrum. In a number of the cases reviewed, community knowledge is considered a key source of data and information, which is why it is deemed in a large number of reports to be seen as particularly valuable in resource-poor contexts, e.g., developing countries with limited scientific capacity (Drew 2005). Despite decades of acknowledgement that local and traditional ecological knowledge hold more value than simply data inputs (Ruddle 2000, Haggan and Neis 2007, Johannes and Neis 2007, De Young et al. 2008, Berkes 2009, Berkes and Nayak 2018), this remains a primary reason, particularly for natural scientists, to work with fishing communities. However, deeming these data sources “low cost” (Mamun and Natcher 2023), presumably relative to costly technological equipment and professional scientific staffing, fails to acknowledge the social resources required to do proper relationship building and co-development work with communities, identified as enablers in the present study. There has been emphasis on the need to budget for resources before, during, and after any knowledge exchange process (Karcher et al. 2022). Interestingly, trust in the evidence base from the perspective of the communities was discussed much more frequently than the perceived salience, relevance, and credibility of community knowledge from the perspective of, e.g., fisheries managers. This is likely an artifact of our search focus, given that this is an important outcome documented elsewhere in the literature (Cash et al. 2003, Karcher et al. 2021).

Ultimately, community knowledge means (1) communities can give us salient, credible, legitimate information to inform all or some of the pillars of fishery sustainability objectives, and (2) communities have values, norms, cultural interests, and other complexities that need to be recognized in governance. This second point is another reason why we must think beyond fish harvesters in engaging with communities; often times, the values, norms, and priorities of harvesters do not originate within the fishing industry itself, but come from higher level social or cultural contexts and traditions. Stephenson et al. (2016) conceive of both a knowledge/information gradient from basic observations to experiential knowledge, as well as a spectrum with respect to integration, from “extractive” data collection practices to information contributions to regimes grounded in participatory governance. More holistic values and norms from communities may be particularly relevant in “strategic” management processes (i.e., where long-term goals and objectives are determined), whereas knowledge as a (perhaps overly simplistic) data input is still useful in “tactical” processes (e.g., year-to-year quota setting). Novel methods such as “storylistening” put forward by Craig and Dillon (2023) may be an effective way to consider community knowledge more holistically within a conventional science-policy space. Importantly, ethical considerations are imperative given that community knowledge of all kinds is proprietary knowledge, and communities and/or individuals within those communities have intellectual property rights, demanding consent and confidentially as needed (see, e.g., Silvano et al. 2022).

As non-Indigenous researchers, we recognize that these concerns over rights to data sovereignty are particularly heightened for Indigenous communities, given legacies of colonialism and the prevalence of extractive research practices around the world (Carroll et al. 2020), including within the Canadian context referenced here. In Canada’s Fisheries Act, Indigenous knowledge is distinct from community knowledge for important reasons related to the unique and diverse forms of knowledge held by these groups, and the inherent and court-affirmed status of Indigenous Peoples in Canada as sovereign political entities. At the same time, Indigenous Peoples certainly also hold community knowledge as well, and conclusions here about how best to engage with community knowledge may help to advance goals around reconciliation in the fisheries sector. On the other hand, management approaches based on community rights favored by some Indigenous communities in Canada (e.g., communal commercial licenses based on principles of community sharing and cooperation to achieve well-being, https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/sor-93-332/page-1.html), which are admittedly a small stepping stone on a longer journey toward true decolonization of natural resource management in Canada, could serve as inspiration for collaborative frameworks that might work for other types of fishing communities in different cultural contexts (Boyd and Charles 2006).

Overcoming challenges

We must not be naïve in thinking that myriad community members working in collaboration with other governance actors will automatically lead to improved fishery outcomes. Decades ago, Jentoft (2000) noted that when discussing human dimensions of fisheries, overfishing is often attributed to “market failure,” but instead argues it could be better conceptualized as “community failure.” After all, fishing communities do not always fulfill the criteria of an ideal community with respect to shared beliefs, a stable membership, continuing interaction, and a direct pattern of relations, and in fact are sometimes characterized by conflicts and inequities, which could become entrenched or magnified if management authority was yielded to the local level. Unfortunately, modern fisheries management (perhaps particularly systems in which harvesters are engaged under the umbrella of “industry” and thus disconnected from their place-based context; Berkes and Nayak 2018) may exacerbate this issue. Clay and Olson (2008) describe the process of “modernization” in fisheries management that has replaced interpersonal connections and shared identities with “market relationships” that are by their nature “fleeting, impersonal, task oriented and without inherent value” (Apostle et al. 1998:8-9). The result can be weakened social bonds, solidarity, and social responsibility within the fishing community in favor of individualistic profit-seeking, and conflict between the fishing community and management authorities. Potentially slow and challenging interpersonal work will undoubtedly be required to correct for decades of centralization and commercialization of many fisheries, including within Canada.

Moving forward together

It is clear that community knowledge can, in fact, form the basis of many important ecological, social, economic, and institutional considerations relevant to fisheries management, and thus is of critical importance, including in Canada where it is formally recognized within the Fisheries Act. Based on our synthesis here, we highlight key considerations for the Canadian context in operationalizing community knowledge in the pursuit of full-spectrum sustainability:

Language matters

It is clear that we must reckon with the distinction between fishing “communities” (per the Fisheries Act) and “industry” (per regular parlance within DFO); if we say “community” but mean “industry,” we are using the wrong language; if we say “industry” but mean “community,” we are not speaking to the right people and need to broaden the scope of who is brought to the table. There are implications for whose knowledge matters in each definition, given that not all resource users are financially tied to fishery resources. Place-based communities may be challenging to define, leading to current debates in Canadian fisheries management about what constitutes “adjacency” with respect to access priority (see, e.g., https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fisheries-peches/consultation/shrimp-crevette/presentations/FFAW-Presentation-St.Anthony.pdf). After all, where one fishes and where one lives may be close together, but it is also possible for a community to live together on land but fish in distant waters, or for communities to come together at sea, but originate from different land-based communities (McCay 1978, Clay and Olson 2008). This leads to the potential need to consider a “communities of the mind” framework and perhaps, ultimately, a bottom-up derivation of who is the “industry” versus the “community” and how these overlap or interface, by those who belong to such groups. In one example from the United States, Sepez et al. (2006) used cross-scale approaches to do fishing community profiling based on ethnographic site visits, combined with a nested framework that both embeds community-level units within macro-level regional or global contexts, and recognizes micro-level intracommunity heterogeneity.

Creating connections

Putting community knowledge into action firstly requires capacity-building to enable collective action, and the design of management structures that “encourage cooperation, build networks, and improve trust within and among local communities” (Jentoft 2000:54). This may function as a bi-directional process, whereby trust and solidarity are required to facilitate a successful participatory process, and the more localized or participatory the management process, the more individuals involved in management may strengthen their networks and experience a form of moral pressure to cooperate. After all, if the various players in fisheries management—managers, harvesters, buyers, and scientists, as well as others in fishing communities—could encounter each other casually in social spaces in their community, there would be stronger incentive to maintain a civil and fair process than if management agencies and processes are located at a distance. This is relevant in a literal geographic sense, but can also apply in cases where the community is less spatially delineated, but may be united (and therefore isolated) based on socioeconomic status or cultural context.

Tracking wins and losses

Just as in conservation (e.g., Catalano et al. 2019, Ray et al. 2021), there is an increased need for reflexivity in this space to monitor outcomes over long-term time scales, and to acknowledge, document, and share both successes and failures more clearly. Kearney et al. (2007) already highlighted “evaluation, reflection, and documentation” as key for building the capacity of communities. There could also be greater emphasis on raising the profile of successful cases of fishery stewardship (e.g., Gasalla and De Castro 2016, Charles et al. 2023), in the same way that successful NGO or academic partnerships are sometimes lauded.

Explicitly recognize community well-being

Maintaining legitimate partnerships will require making concerted efforts to achieve community goals related to fisheries (e.g., livelihoods, economic and social well-being). Although there is debate within DFO about the extent to which on-land aspects of the fishery (i.e., place-based fishing communities) should be within their purview, “continued prosperity” with respect to fisheries is explicit in their mandate. Although we highly recommend the implementation of Social Impact Assessments in the fishery assessment process (per Feeney 2013, analyzed here), we acknowledge the limited resources to conduct socioeconomic research within DFO at this time. Achieving such objectives may therefore require interfacing with development institutions across both disciplinary and sectoral silos in order to achieve a holistic conception of community well-being and sustainable livelihoods (e.g., considering physical, social, human, and financial capital; see Charles 2012, Gurney et al. 2014).

SUMMARY

The impact of community knowledge may come in the form of enhanced knowledge of a target species or the ecosystem, which is key for recent objectives toward the achievement of ecosystem-based management (Link et al. 2011, Curran et al. 2012, Bundy et al. 2021, Pepin et al. 2022), but also in establishing perceptions and priorities for management, assessing and explaining socioeconomic dynamics, and rebalancing power relations for enhanced fisheries governance. Community knowledge may be essential in decision-making situations in which scientific capacity is low, but it should not be seen as a last resort source of information, as it is both unique and comprehensive in its scope, albeit subject to limitations (see, e.g., Hill et al. 2010), just as scientific methodologies are. In strengthening the evidence base, while pursuing reconciliation, credibility, and legitimacy, for fisheries management decision making in Canada, community knowledge can serve as a cornerstone.

LITERATURE CITED

Able, K. W. 2016. Natural history: an approach whose time has come, passed, and needs to be resurrected. ICES Journal of Marine Science 73(9):2150-2155. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsw049

Ackoff, R. L. 1989. From data to wisdom. Journal of Applied Systems Analysis 16:3-9.

Ahmed, N., S. Rahman, S. W. Bunting, and C. Brugere. 2013. Socio-economic and ecological challenges of small-scale fishing and strategies for its sustainable management: a case study of the Old Brahmaputra River, Bangladesh. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 34(1):86-102. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12015

Alpizar, M. A. Q. 2006. Participation and fisheries management in Costa Rica : from theory to practice. Marine Policy 30:641-650. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2005.09.001

Amarasinghe, U. S., and S. S. De Silva. 1999. Sri Lankan reservoir fishery: a case for introduction of a co-management strategy. Fisheries Management and Ecology 6:387-400. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2400.1999.00170.x

Apostle, R., G. Barrett, P. Holm, S. Jentoft, L. Mazany, B. McCay, and K. H. Mikalsen. 1998. Community, state and market on the North Atlantic Rim: challenges to modernity in the fisheries. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Appleby, T., and J. Harrison. 2015. Brexit and the future of Scottish fisheries - key legal issues in a changing regulatory landscape. Journal of Water Law 25(3):124-132.

Aswani, S. 2005. Customary sea tenure in Oceania as a case of rights-based fishery management: Does it work? Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 15:285-307. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-005-4868-x

Aswani, S., G. G. Gurney, S. Mulville, J. Matera, and M. Gurven. 2013. Insights from experimental economics on local cooperation in a small-scale fishery management system. Global Environmental Change 23(6):1402-1409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.08.003

Aswani, S., and K. Ruddle. 2013. Design of realistic hybrid marine resource management programs in oceania. Pacific Science 67(3):461-476. https://doi.org/10.2984/67.3.11

Barclay, K., M. Voyer, N. Mazur, A. M. Payne, S. Mauli, J. Kinch, M. Fabinyi, and G. Smith. 2017. The importance of qualitative social research for effective fisheries management. Fisheries Research 186:426-438. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2016.08.007

Batista, M. I., F. Baeta, M. J. Costa, and H. N. Cabral. 2011. MPA as management tools for small-scale fisheries: the case study of Arrábida Marine Protected Area (Portugal). Ocean and Coastal Management 54:137-147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2010.10.032

Bell, C., and H. Newby. 1975. Community studies: an introduction to the sociology of the local community. Studies in sociology. Routledge, London, UK. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003213765

Berghöfer, A., H. Wittmer, and F. Rauschmayer. 2008. Stakeholder participation in ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management: a synthesis from European research projects. Marine Policy 32(2):243-253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2007.09.014

Berkes, F. 2009. Indigenous ways of knowing and the study of environmental change. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 39(4):151-156. https://doi.org/10.1080/03014220909510568

Berkes, F., P. George, and R. J. Preston. 1991. Co-management: the evolution in theory and practice of the joint administration of living resources. Alternatives Perspectives on Society, Technology, and Environment 18(2):12-18.

Berkes, F., and P. K. Nayak. 2018. Role of communities in fisheries management: “one would first need to imagine it.” Maritime Studies 17(3):241-251. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-018-0120-x

Boubekri, I., H. Mazurek, A. B. Djebar, and R. Amara. 2022. Social-ecological dimensions of Marine Protected Areas and coastal fishing: how fishermen’s local ecological knowledge can inform fisheries management at the future “Taza” MPA (Algeria, SW Mediterranean). Ocean and Coastal Management 221:106121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2022.106121

Boyd, H., and A. Charles. 2006. Creating community-based indicators to monitor sustainability of local fisheries. Ocean and Coastal Management 49(5-6):237-258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2006.03.006

Brown, D. N., and R. S. Pomeroy. 1999. Co-management of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) fisheries. Marine Policy 23(6):549-570. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-597X(98)00040-2

Bulengela, G., P. Onyango, J. Brehm, P. A. Staehr, and E. Sweke. 2020. “Bring fishermen at the center ”: the value of local knowledge for understanding fisheries resources and climate-related changes in Lake Tanganyika. Environment, Development and Sustainability 22:5621-5649. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-019-00443-z

Bundy, A., J. Daly, C. Thompson, and M. Westhead. 2021. DFO Maritimes Region Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) framework workshop II: incorporating social, cultural and governance aspects. Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 3440. Fisheries and Oceans Canada Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Cadman, R., B. H. MacDonald, and S. S. Soomai. 2020. Sharing victories: characteristics of collaborative strategies of environmental non-governmental organizations in Canadian marine conservation. Marine Policy 115:103862. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103862

Calhoun, S., F. Conway, and S. Russell. 2016. Acknowledging the voice of women: implications for fisheries management and policy. Marine Policy 74:292-299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.04.033

Carlson, A. K., W. W. Taylor, and J. Liu. 2019. Using the telecoupling framework to improve Great Lakes fisheries sustainability. Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 22(3):342-354. https://doi.org/10.1080/14634988.2019.1668660

Carroll, S. R., I. Garba, O. L. Figueroa-Rodríguez, J. Holbrook, R. Lovett, S. Materechera, M. Parsons, K. Raseroka, D. Rodriguez-lonebear, R. Rowe, R. Sara, J. D. Walker, J. Anderson, and M. Hudson. 2020. The CARE principles for Indigenous data governance. Data Science Journal 19:43. https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-043

Cash, D. W., W. C. Clark, F. Alcock, N. M. Dickson, N. Eckley, D. H. Guston, J. Jäger, and R. B. Mitchell. 2003. Knowledge systems for sustainable development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 100(14):8086-8091. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1231332100

Catalano, A. S., J. Lyons-White, M. M. Mills, and A. T. Knight. 2019. Learning from published project failures in conservation. Biological Conservation 238:108223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108223

Chambers, C., and M. Kokorsch. 2017. Viewpoint: the social dimension in Icelandic fisheries governance. Coastal Management 45(4):330-337. https://doi.org/10.1080/08920753.2017.1327346

Charles, A. T. 1994. Towards sustainability: the fishery experience. Ecological Economics 11(3):201-211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0921-8009(94)90201-1

Charles, A. T. 1997. Fisheries management in Atlantic Canada. Ocean and Coastal Management 35(2-3):110-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0964-5691(97)00028-8

Charles, A. 2012. People, oceans and scale: governance, livelihoods and climate change adaptation in marine social-ecological systems. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 4:351-357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2012.05.011

Charles, A., L. Loucks, F. Berkes, and D. Armitage. 2020. Community science: a typology and its implications for governance of social-ecological systems. Environmental Science and Policy 106:77-86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2020.01.019

Charles, A., A. Macnaughton, and S. Hicks. 2023. Environmental stewardship by small-scale fisheries. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy.

Chitará-Nhandimo, S., A. Chissico, M. E. Mubai, A. de S. Cabral, A. Guissamulo, and S. Bandeira. 2022. Seagrass invertebrate fisheries , their value chains and the role of LMMAs in sustainability of the coastal communities—case of southern Mozambique. Diversity 14(3):170. https://doi.org/10.3390/d14030170

Clay, P. M., and J. Olson. 2008. Defining fishing communities: issues in theory and practice. NAPA Bulletin 28:27-42. https://doi.org/10.1525/napa.2007.28.1.27

Craig, C., and S. Dillon. 2023. “Storylistening” in the science policy ecosystem. Science 379(6628):134-136. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo1355

Crow, G. 2008. Part two: present practice and potential: recent rural community studies. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 11(2):131-139. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645570801940848

Curran, K., A. Bundy, M. Craig, T. Hall, P. Lawton, and S. Quigley. 2012. Recomendations for science, management, and an ecosystem approach in Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Maritimes Region. Fisheries and Oceans Canada Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Research Document (2012/061).

Curry, J. M. 2007. The nature-culture boundary and ocean policy: Great Barrier Island, New Zealand. Geographical Review 97(1):46-66. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1931-0846.2007.tb00279.x

De Young, C., A. Charles, and A. Hjort. 2008. Human dimensions of the ecosystem approach to fisheries: an overview of context, concepts, tools and methods. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 489. Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy.

Dell'Apa, A., J. P. Kilborn, and W. J. Harford. 2020. Advancing ecosystem management strategies for the Gulf of Mexico’s fisheries resources: implications for the development of a fishery ecosystem plan. Bulletin of Marine Science 96(4):617-640. https://doi.org/10.5343/bms.2019.0081

Dominguez-Torreiro, M., A. B. Álvarez-Freijeiro, and C. Iglesias-Malvido. 2004. Co-management proposals and their efficiency implications in fisheries management: the case of the Grand Sole fleet. Marine Policy 28(3):213-219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2003.09.002

Dong, L., and P. Guo. 2022. The practice of ecosystem approach to fisheries on the high seas: challenges and suggestions. Sustainability 14(10):6171. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14106171

Drew, J. A. 2005. Use of traditional ecological knowledge in marine conservation. Conservation Biology 19(4):1286-1293. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00158.x

Edeson, W. 2006. Some future directions for fishing entities in certain regional fisheries management bodies. Ocean Development and International Law 37:245-264. https://doi.org/10.1080/00908320600632124

Elvarsson, B. Þ., S. Agnarsson, and S. Guðmundsdóttir, and J. Viðarsson. 2020. Using multi-criteria analysis the assess impacts of change in ecosystem-based fisheries management: the case of the Icelandic cod. Marine Policy 116:103825. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103825

Eythórsson, E. 2000. A decade of ITQ-management in Icelandic fisheries: consolidation without consensus. Marine Policy 24(2000):483-492. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-597X(00)00021-X

Feeney, R. G. 2013. Evaluating the use of social impact assessment in Northeast US federal fisheries management. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 31:271-279. https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2013.821768

Fletcher, W. J., B. S. Wise, L. M. Joll, N. G. Hall, E. A. Fisher, A. V. Harry, D. V. Fairclough, D. J. Gaughan, K. Travaille, B. W. Molony, and M. Kangas. 2016. Refinements to harvest strategies to enable effective implementation of ecosystem based fisheries management for the multi-sector, multi-species fisheries of Western Australia. Fisheries Research 183:594-608. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2016.04.014

Foley, P., E. Pinkerton, M. G. Wiber, and R. L. Stephenson. 2020. Full-spectrum sustainability: an alternative to fisheries management panaceas. Ecology and Society 25(2):1. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11509-250201

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 2022. Strengthening coherence between social protection and fisheries policies: framework for analysis and action. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper No. 671/1. FAO, Rome, Italy. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc2411en

Frangoudes, K., S. Gerrard, and A. Said. 2020. Commentary 6 to the Manifesto for the marine social sciences: gender and the role of women. Maritime Studies 19:137-138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-020-00186-y

Freitag, A., B. Vogt, and T. Hartley. 2018. Ecosystem-based fisheries management in the Chesapeake: developing functional indicators. Coastal Management 46(3):127-147. https://doi.org/10.1080/08920753.2018.1451729

Garcia, S. M. 2008. Fisheries assessment and decision making: towards an integrated advisory process. Pages 158-196 in G. Bianchi and H. R. Skjoldal, editors. The ecosystem approach to fisheries. CAB International, Wallingford, UK and Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy.

Gasalla, M. A., and F. De Castro. 2016. Enhancing stewardship in Latin America and Caribbean small-scale fisheries: challenges and opportunities. Maritime Studies 15:15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40152-016-0054-0

Gauvreau, A. M., D. Lepofsky, M. Rutherford, and M. Reid. 2017. “Everything revolves around the herring”: the Heiltsuk-herring relationship through time. Ecology and Society 22(2):10. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09201-220210

Geheb, K., and K. Crean. 2003. Community-level access and control in the management of Lake Victoria’s fisheries. Journal of Environmental Management 67(2):99-106. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0301-4797(02)00158-5

Giles, A., L. Fanning, S. Denny, and T. Paul. 2016. Improving the American eel fishery through the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge into policy level decision making in Canada. Human Ecology 44:167-183. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-016-9814-0

Grace-McCaskey, C. A. 2018. Multi-scale fisheries management in St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands: What influences participation? Human Organization 77(2):157-171. https://doi.org/10.17730/0018-7259-77.2.157

Gray, S., R. Shwom, and R. Jordan. 2012. Understanding factors that influence stakeholder trust of natural resource science and institutions. Environmental Management 49:663-674. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-011-9800-7

Guanais, J. H. G., R. Pereira Medeira, and P. A. McConney. 2015. Designing a framework for addressing bycatch problems in Brazilian small-scale trawl fisheries. Marine Policy 51:111-118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2014.07.004

Gurney, G. G., J. Cinner, N. C. Ban, R. L. Pressey, R. Pollnac, S. J. Campbell, S. Tasidjawa, and F. Setiawan. 2014. Poverty and protected areas: an evaluation of a marine integrated conservation and development project in Indonesia. Global Environmental Change 26:98-107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.04.003

Haggan, N., and B. Neis. 2007. The changing face of fisheries science and management. Pages 421-432 in B. Neis, I. G. Baird, N. Haggan, editors. Fishers’ knowledge in fisheries science and management. UNESCO, Paris, France.

Hakkarainen, V., T. M. Daw, and M. Tengö. 2020. On the other end of research: exploring community-level knowledge exchanges in small-scale fisheries in Zanzibar. Sustainability Science 15:281-295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-019-00750-4

Hamelin, K. M., J. A. Hutchings, and M. Bailey. 2023. Look who’s talking: contributions to evidence-based decision making for commercial fisheries in Atlantic Canada. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 80(2):211-228. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2022-0025

Hamelin, K. M., M. A. MacNeil, K. Curran, and M. Bailey. 2022. “The people’s fish”: sociocultural dimensions of recreational fishing for Atlantic mackerel in Nova Scotia. Frontiers in Marine Science 9:971262. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.971262

Harris, J. M., G. M. Branch, B. M. Clark, A. C. Cockcroft, C. Coetzee, A. H. Dye, M. Hauck, A. Johnson, L. Kati-Kati, Z. Maseko, et al. 2002. Recommendations for the management of subsistence fisheries in South Africa. South African Journal of Marine Science 24(1):503-523. https://doi.org/10.2989/025776102784528420

Hawkins, A. D. 2002. New approaches to fisheries management. Fisheries Science 68:361-366. https://doi.org/10.2331/fishsci.68.sup1_361

Herrera-Racionero, P., E. Lizcano-Fernández, and L. Miret-Pastor. 2015. “Us” and “them”: fishermen from Gandía and the loss of institutional legitimacy. Marine Policy 54:130-136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2014.12.018

Hill, N. A. O., K. P. Michael, A. Frazer, and S. Leslie. 2010. The utility and risk of local ecological knowledge in developing stakeholder driven fisheries management: the Foveaux Strait dredge oyster fishery, New Zealand. Ocean and Coastal Management 53(11):659-668. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2010.04.011

Hind, E. J. 2015. A review of the past, the present, and the future of fishers’ knowledge research: a challenge to established fisheries science. ICES Journal of Marine Science 72(2):341-358. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsu169

Hossain, M. M., M. A. Islam, S. Ridgway, and T. Matsuishi. 2006. Management of inland open water fisheries resources of Bangladesh: issues and options. Fisheries Research 77(3):275-284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2005.11.010

Hossain, M. A., and A. A. Rabby. 2019. Institutional constraints to fishers’ resilience: community based fishery management in Bangladesh. International Journal of the Commons 13(1):507-527. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.902

Hviding, E., and G. B. K. Baines. 1994. Community-based fisheries management, tradition and the challenges of development in Marovo, Solomon Islands. Development and Change 25:13-39. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1994.tb00508.x

Ikechukwu Uduji, J., and E. N. Okolo-Obasi. 2020. Does corporate social responsibility (CSR) impact on development of women in small-scale fisheries of sub-Saharan Africa? Evidence from coastal communities of Niger Delta in Nigeria. Marine Policy 118:103323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2018.10.036

Jacobson, N. 2007. Social epistemology: theory for the “Fourth Wave” of knowledge transfer and exchange research. Science Communication 29(1):116-127. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547007305166

Jentoft, S. 2000. The community: a missing link of fisheries management. Marine Policy 24:53-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-597X(99)00009-3

Johannes, R. E., and B. Neis. 2007. The value of anecdote. Pages 41-58 in B. Neis, I. G. Baird, N. Haggan, editors. Fishers’ knowledge in fisheries science and management. UNESCO, Paris, France.

Jyotishi, A., G. Viswanathan, S. Madhavan, and Parthasarathy R. 2020. State, private or cooperatives? The governance of Tawa reservoir fisheries, India. Fisheries Management and Ecology 27:325-335. https://doi.org/10.1111/fme.12415

Kabir, G. M. S., T. S. Yew, K. M. Noh, and L. S. Hook. 2013. Assessment of governance of fisher communities of inland openwater fisheries in Bangladesh. Ocean and Coastal Management 80:20-28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2013.03.014

Kaplan, I. M., and H. L. Kite-Powell. 2000. Safety at sea and fisheries management: fishermen’s attitudes and the need for co-management. Marine Policy 24:493-497. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-597X(00)00026-9

Karcher, D. B., C. Cvitanovic, R. M. Colvin, I. E. van Putten, and M. S. Reed. 2021. Is this what success looks like? Mismatches between the aims, claims, and evidence used to demonstrate impact from knowledge exchange processes at the interface of environmental science and policy. Environmental Science and Policy 125:202-218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.08.012

Karcher, D. B., C. Cvitanovic, R. Shellock, A. J. Hobday, R. L. Stephenson, M. Dickey-Collas, and I. E. van Putten. 2022. More than money - the costs of knowledge exchange at the interface of science and policy. Ocean and Coastal Management 225:106194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2022.106194

Kearney, J., F. Berkes, A. Charles, E. Pinkerton, and M. Wiber. 2007. The role of participatory governance and community-based management in integrated coastal and ocean management in Canada. Coastal Management 35(1):79-104. https://doi.org/10.1080/10.1080/08920750600970511

Knott, C., N. Power, B. Neis, and K. Frangoudes. 2022. North Atlantic fishy feminists and the more-than-human approach: a conversation. Gender, Place & Culture 29:1767-1787. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2021.1997935

Kuperan, K., and N. M. R. Abdullah. 1994. Small-scale coastal fisheries and co-management. Marine Policy 18(4):306-313. https://doi.org/10.1016/0308-597X(94)90045-0

Le Heron, R., E. Rees, E. Massey, M. Bruges, and S. Thrush. 2008. Improving fisheries management in New Zealand: developing dialogue between fisheries science and management (FSM) and ecosystem science and management (ESM). Geoforum 39:48-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2006.08.014

Leite, L., and C. Pita. 2016. Review of participatory fisheries management arrangements in the European Union. Marine Policy 74:268-278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.08.003

Leite, M. C. F., and M. A. Gasalla. 2013. A method for assessing fishers’ ecological knowledge as a practical tool for ecosystem-based fisheries management: seeking consensus in Southeastern Brazil. Fisheries Research 145:43-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2013.02.013

Léopold, M., J. Beckensteiner, J. Kaltavara, J. Raubani, and S. Caillon. 2013. Community-based management of near-shore fisheries in Vanuatu: What works? Marine Policy 42:167-176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2013.02.013

Liao, C., H. Huang, and H. Lu. 2019. Fishermen’s perceptions of coastal fisheries management regulations: key factors to rebuilding coastal fishery resources in Taiwan. Ocean and Coastal Management 172:1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2019.01.015

Liboiron, M. 2021. Pollution is colonialism. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, USA. https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478021445

Lieng, S., N. Yagi, A. Mori, and J. D. Hastings. 2018. Savings-group improvements contribute to sustainable community-fisheries management: a case study in Cambodia. Sustainability 10(8):2905. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10082905

Liepins, R. 2000. New energies for an old idea: reworking approaches to ‘community’ in contemporary rural studies. Journal of Rural Studies 16:25-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0743-0167(99)00042-X

Link, J. S., A. Bundy, W. J. Overholtz, N. Shackell, J. Manderson, D. Duplisea, J. Hare, M. Koen-Alonso, and K. Friedland. 2011. Ecosystem-based fisheries management in the Northwest Atlantic. Fish and Fisheries 12:152-170. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-2979.2011.00411.x

Lodge, M. W. 2006. The practice of fishing entities in regional fisheries management organizations: the case of the commission for the conservation and management of highly migratory fish stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Ocean Development and International Law 37(2):185-207. https://doi.org/10.1080/00908320600632116

López-Angarita, J., A. Tilley, J. M. Díaz, J. P. Hawkins, E. F. Cagua, and C. M. Roberts. 2018. Winners and losers in area-based management of a small-scale fishery in the Colombian Pacific. Frontiers in Marine Science 5:23. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00023

López-Juambeltz, F., L. Rodríguez-Gallego, J. M. Dabezíes, C. Chreties, S. Narbondo, and D. Conde. 2020. A GIS-based assessment combined with local ecological knowledge to support the management of Juncus acutus L. spreading in the floodplain of a protected coastal lagoon. Journal for Nature Conservation 57:125891. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2020.125891

Lowry, G. K., A. T. White, and P. Christie. 2009. Scaling up to networks of marine protected areas in the Philippines: biophysical, legal, institutional, and social considerations. Coastal Management 37(3-4):274-290. https://doi.org/10.1080/08920750902851146

Maliao, R., R. S. Pomeroy, and R. G. Turingan. 2009. Performance of community-based coastal resource management (CBCRM) programs in the Philippines: a meta-analysis. Marine Policy 33:818-825. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2009.03.003

Mamun, A. A., and D. C. Natcher. 2023. The promise and pitfalls of community-based monitoring with a focus on Canadian examples. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 195:445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10841-y

Mangubhai, S., and S. Lawless. 2021. Exploring gender inclusion in small-scale fisheries management and development in Melanesia. Marine Policy 123:104287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.104287

Marin-Monroy, E. A., R. Romero-Canyas, J. A. Fraire-Cervantes, D. Larson-Konar, and R. Fujita. 2020. Compliance with rights-based fisheries management is associated with fishermen’s perceptions of peer compliance and experience: a case study in the Upper Gulf of California. Ocean and Coastal Management 189:105155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2020.105155

Mattingley, L., S. Jayakody, and B. E. Scott. 2016. Exploring the applicability of biological and socioeconomic tools in developing EAFM plans for data absent areas: Spinner dolphin EAFM for Kalpitiya, Sri Lanka. Marine Policy 68:136-145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.02.023

McCay, B. J. 1978. Systems ecology, people ecology, and the anthropology of fishing communities. Human Ecology 6(4):397-422. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00889417

McGrath, D. G., L. Castello, O. T. Almeida, and G. M. B. Estupiñán. 2015. Market formalization, governance, and the integration of community fisheries in the Brazilian Amazon. Society & Natural Resources 28:513-529. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2015.1014607

McNeill, A., J. Clifton, and E. S. Harvey. 2019. Specialised recreational fishers reject sanctuary zones and favour fisheries management. Marine Policy 107:103592. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103592

Mendoza, J. C., R. de la Cruz-Modino, C. Dorta, P. M. Sosa, and J. C. Hernandez. 2022. Ecosystem modeling to evaluate the ecological sustainability of small-scale fisheries: a case study from El Hierro, Canary Islands. Ocean and Coastal Management 228:106297. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2022.106297

Montgomery, M., and M. Vaughan. 2018. Ma Kahana ka ʻIke: lessons for community-based fisheries management. Sustainability 10(10):3799. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103799

Morzaria-Luna, H. N., P. Turk-Boyer, E. I. Polanco-Mizquez, C. Downton-Hoffmann, G. Cruz-Piñon, T. Carrillo-Lammens, R. Loaiza-Villanueva, P. Valdivia-Jiménez, A. Sánchez-Cruz, V. Peña-Mendoza, et al. 2020. Coastal and marine spatial planning in the Northern Gulf of California, Mexico: consolidating stewardship, property rights, and enforcement for ecosystem-based fisheries management. Ocean & Coastal Management 197:105316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2020.105316

Mpomwenda, V., D. M. Kristófersson, A. Taabu-Munyaho, T. Tómasson, J. G. Pétursson. 2022. Fisheries management on Lake Victoria at a crossroads: assessing fishers’ perceptions on future management options in Uganda. Fisheries Management and Ecology 29:196-211. https://doi.org/10.1111/fme.12526

Mulekom, L. Van. 1999. An institutional development process in community based coastal resource management: building the capacity and opportunity for community based co-management in a small-scale fisheries community. Ocean & Coastal Management 42:439-456. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0964-5691(99)00024-1

Murray, G., B. Neis, and J. P. Johnsen. 2006. Lessons learned from reconstructing interactions between local ecological knowledge, fisheries science, and fisheries management in the commercial fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Human Ecology 34(4):549-571. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-006-9010-8

Mustafa, M. G. 2009. Fishery resources trends and community-based management approaches adopted in the river Titas in Bangladesh. International Journal of River Basin Management 7(2):135-145. https://doi.org/10.1080/15715124.2009.9635376

Nakhshina, M. 2016. Constraints on community participation in salmon fisheries management in Northwest Russia. Marine Policy 74:309-315. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.05.035

Nasuchon, N., and A. Charles. 2010. Community involvement in fisheries management: experiences in the Gulf of Thailand countries. Marine Policy 34(1):163-169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2009.06.005

Neis, B., S. Gerrard, and N. G. Power. 2013. Women and children first: the gendered and generational social-ecology of smaller-scale fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador and northern Norway. Ecology and Society 18(4):64. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06010-180464

Noble, B. F. 2000. Institutional criteria for co-management. Marine Policy 24:69-77. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-597X(99)00014-7

Oerther, D. B. 2022. A case study of community-engaged design: creating parametric insurance to meet the safety needs of fisherfolk in the Caribbean. Journal of Environmental Engineering 148(3):05021008. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EE.1943-7870.0001971

Ounanian, K. 2019. Existential fisheries dependence: remaining on the map through fishing. Sociologia Ruralis 59(4):810-830. https://doi.org/10.1111/soru.12248

Owusu, V., K. Adu-Boahen, S. Kyeremeh, I. Demalie, and P. Eshun. 2023. Factors influencing compliance of closed fishing season: lessons from small-scale coastal fisheries in the Central Region of Ghana. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 10:20. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01513-4

Pahl, R. 2005. Are all communities communities in the mind? Sociological Review 53(4):621-640. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2005.00587.x

Pepin, P., J. King, C. Holt, H. Gurney-Smith, N. Shackell, K. Hedges, and A. Bundy. 2022. Incorporating knowledge of changes in climatic, oceanographic and ecological conditions in Canadian stock assessments. Fish and Fisheries 23(6):1332-1346. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12692

Pinho, P. F., B. Orlove, and M. Lubell. 2012. Overcoming barriers to collective action in community-based fisheries management in the Amazon. Human Organization 71(1):99-109. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.71.1.c34057171x0w8g5p

Pinkerton, E. 1989. Co-operative management of local fisheries: new directions for improved management and community development. UBC Press, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. https://doi.org/10.59962/9780774854542

Pomeroy, R. S. 1991. Small-scale fisheries management and development: towards a community-based approach. Marine Policy 15(1):39-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/0308-597X(91)90042-A

Pomeroy, R. S. 1995. Community-based and co-management institutions for sustainable coastal fisheries management in Southeast Asia. Ocean and Coastal Management 27(3):143-162. https://doi.org/10.1016/0964-5691(95)00042-9

Pomeroy, R. S., B. M. Katon, and I. Harkes. 2001. Conditions affecting the success of fisheries co-management: lessons from Asia. Marine Policy 25:197-208. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-597X(01)00010-0

Puley, M., and A. Charles. 2022. Dissecting co-management: fisher participation across management components and implications for governance. Fish and Fisheries 23(3):719-732. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12645

Quintana, A., X. Basurto, S. Rodriguez Van Dyck, and A. H. Weaver. 2020. Political making of more-than-fishers through their involvement in ecological monitoring of protected areas. Biodiversity and Conservation 29:3899-3923. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-020-02055-w

R Core Development Team. 2022. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/

Rab, M. A. 2009. River fisheries management in Bangladesh: drawing lessons from community based fisheries management (CBFM) experiences. Ocean and Coastal Management 52:533-538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2009.08.001

Ray, J. C., J. Grimm, and A. Olive. 2021. The biodiversity crisis in Canada: failures and challenges of federal and sub-national strategic and legal frameworks. Facets 6:1044-1068. https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2020-0075

River, K., S. Songkhram, S. D. Pramitasari, W. G. Gallardo, and T. Ebbers. 2015. Fishers perception and attitude toward local knowledge and local practices and its role in the fisheries management: a case study in Mae Klong River, Samut Songkhram, Thailand. Turkish Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 15:795-804.

Ross, N. 2015. Understanding the fishing “community”: the role of communities of the mind. Sociologia Ruralis 55(3):309-324. https://doi.org/10.1111/soru.12094

Rowley, J. 2007. The wisdom hierarchy: representations of the DIKW hierarchy. Journal of Information Science 33(2):163-180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551506070706

Ruddle, K. 1998. Traditional community-based coastal marine fisheries management in Viet Nam. Ocean and Coastal Management 40:1-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0964-5691(98)00072-6

Ruddle, K. 2000. Systems of knowledge: dialogue, relationships and process. Environment, Development and Sustainability 2:277-304. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011470209408

Salvadeo, C., H. N. Morzaria-Luna, H. Reyes-Bonilla, A. Ivanova-Bonchera, D. Petatán Ramírez, and E. Juárez-León. 2021. Fisher’s perceptions inform adaptation measures to reduce vulnerability to climate change in a Mexican natural protected area. Marine Policy 134:104793. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104793

Santha, S. D. 2008. Local culture, technological change and riverine fisheries management in Kerala, South India. International Journal of Rural Management 4(1-2):25-45. https://doi.org/10.1177/097300520900400202

Sari, I., A. White, M. Ichsan, J. Cope, J. Nowlis, C. Rotinsulu, S. Mandagi, E. Menai, Z. Henan, R. Sharma, S. Tuharea, R. Tabalessy, and M. Masengi. 2022. Translating the ecosystem approach to fisheries management into practice: case of anchovy management, Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia. Marine Policy 143:105162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2022.105162

Satria, A., and Y. Matsuda. 2004. Decentralization of fisheries management in Indonesia. Marine Policy 28:437-450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2003.11.001

Schreiber, D. K. 2001. Co-management without involvement: the plight of fishing communities. Fish and Fisheries 2:376-384. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1467-2960.2001.00057.x

Sekhar, N. U. 2007. Social capital and fisheries management: the case of Chilika Lake in India. Environmental Management 39:497-505. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-006-0183-0

Sepez, J., K. Norman, A. Poole, and B. Tilt. 2006. Fish scales: scale and method in social science research for north pacific and west coast fishing communities. Human Organization 65(3):280-293. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.65.3.70lb0n7q6l1j516v

Silvano, R. A. M., I. G. Baird, A. Begossi, G. Hallwass, H. P. Huntington, P. F. M. Lopes, B. Parlee, and F. Berkes. 2022. Fishers’ multidimensional knowledge advances fisheries and aquatic science. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 38(1):8-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2022.10.002

Silver, J. J., D. K. Okamoto, D. Armitage, S. M. Alexander, C. Atleo, J. M. Burt, R. Jones, L. C. Lee, E. K. Muhl, A. K. Salomon, and J. S. Stoll. 2022. Fish, people, and systems of power: understanding and disrupting feedback between colonialism and fisheries science. American Naturalist 200(1):168-180. https://doi.org/10.1086/720152

Soomai, S. S. 2017a. Understanding the science-policy interface: case studies on the role of information in fisheries management. Environmental Science and Policy 72:65-75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2017.03.004

Soomai, S. S. 2017b. The science-policy interface in fisheries management: insights about the influence of organizational structure and culture on information pathways. Marine Policy 81:53-63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2017.03.016

Stephenson, R. L., A. J. Benson, K. Brooks, A. Charles, P. Degnbol, C. M. Dichmont, M. Kraan, S. Pascoe, S. D. Paul, A. Rindorf, and M. Wiber. 2017. Practical steps toward integrating economic, social and institutional elements in fisheries policy and management. ICES Journal of Marine Science 74(7):1981-1989. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsx057

Stephenson, R. L., S. Paul, M. A. Pastoors, M. Kraan, P. Holm, M. Wiber, S. Mackinson, D. J. Dankel, K. Brooks, and A. Benson. 2016. Integrating fishers’ knowledge research in science and management. ICES Journal of Marine Science 73(6):1459-1465. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsw025

Stephenson, R. L., M. Wiber, S. Paul, E. Angel, A. Benson, A. Charles, O. Chouinard, D. Edwards, P. Foley, D. Lane, J. McIsaac, B. Neis, C. Parlee, E. Pinkerton, M. Saunders, K. Squires, and U. R. Sumaila. 2019. Integrating diverse objectives for sustainable fisheries in Canada. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 76(3):480-496. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2017-0345

Sutinen, J. G., and R. J. Johnston. 2003. Angling management organizations: integrating the recreational sector into fishery management. Marine Policy 27:471-487. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0308-597X(03)00079-4

Syddall, V. M., K. Fisher, and S. Thrush. 2022. What does gender have to do with the price of tuna? Social-ecological systems view of women, gender, and governance in Fiji’s tuna fishery. Maritime Studies 21(4):447-463. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-022-00281-2

Szymkowiak, M., and S. Kasperski. 2021. Sustaining an Alaska coastal community: integrating place based well-being indicators and fisheries participation. Coastal Management 49(1):107-131. https://doi.org/10.1080/08920753.2021.1846165

Tirrell, A. 2017. Sociocultural institutions in Norwegian fisheries management. Marine Policy 77:37-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.12.002

Tokunaga, K., T. Miyata, and H. Wakamatsu. 2019. Evolution of a co-management arrangement in Japanese offshore fisheries: current policy and legal framework and a case study of the tiger puffer fishery in Ise - Mikawa Bay. ICES Journal of Marine Science 76(6):1567-1580. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsz047

van Hoof, L. 2010. Co-management: an alternative to enforcement? ICES Journal of Marine Science 67:395-401. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsp239

Van Kerkhoff, L., and L. Lebel. 2006. Linking knowledge and action for sustainable development. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 31:445-477. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.energy.31.102405.170850

Weigel, J.-Y., K. O. Mannle, N. J. Bennett, E. Carter, L. Westlund, V. Burgener, Z. Hoffman, A. Simão Da Silva, E. A. Kane, J. Sanders, C. Piante, S. Wagiman, and A. Hellman. 2014. Marine protected areas and fisheries: bridging the divide. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 24(2):199-215. https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.2514

Yagi, N., M. L. Clark, L. G. Anderson, R. Arnason, and R. Metzner. 2012. Applicability of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) in Japanese fisheries: a comparison of rights-based fisheries management in Iceland, Japan, and United States. Marine Policy 36(1):241-245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2011.05.011

Yang, D., and R. Pomeroy. 2017. The impact of community-based fisheries management (CBFM) on equity and sustainability of small-scale coastal fisheries in the Philippines. Marine Policy 86:173-181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2017.09.027

Zucchetti Schons, S., G. Amacher, K. Cobourn, and C. Arantes. 2020. Benefits of community fisheries management to individual households in the floodplains of the Amazon River in Brazil. Ecological Economics 169:106531. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106531