Effective management of small-scale fisheries is an extraordinarily difficult task. Community-based approaches to management appear to offer important opportunities in certain situations. Extensive experience of such approaches in Japan provides valuable lessons of both the difficulties and the opportunities for this approach. The Consultation examined these experiences as well as others in the Asia and Pacific region. It identified the critical factors that facilitate or constrain community-based management; it identified guiding principles for the adoption and implementation of such systems; and, it made proposals for short- and long-term projects and programmes to encourage increased use of community-based approaches.

The session was closed with papers that provided a prognosis on the future development of property rights in fisheries management. Thus, the conference papers addressed the theory and application of property.

In Asia, the fisheries sector is important in terms of food security, livelihoods and foreign exchange earnings. However, as in many parts of the world, there are signs that capture fisheries are fully exploited or overfished. Management of fisheries in the region is often hampered by lack of information on the status of fisheries in terms of biological, social, economic, policy and governance aspects. This regional project documents an alarming decline on coastal fishery resources, based on historic research surveys in South and Southeast Asia. Socio-economic analyses and policy reviews highlight the importance of the fisheries sector but also the challenges facing it. Potential interventions to improve fisheries management in the countries are outlined and defined with environmental, socioeconomic and institutional objectives.

In June 2014, FAO member-states endorsed the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines). These Guidelines are one of the most significant landmarks for small-scale fisheries around the world. They are comprehensive in terms of topics covered, and progressive, with their foundations based on human rights and other key principles. It can be anticipated that implementing the SSF Guidelines, whether at local, national, or regional levels, will be challenging. This book contains in-depth case studies where authors discuss the extent to which the Guidelines can help improve the realities of small-scale fishing men and women globally and make their livelihoods and communities more secure. This will require policy intervention and innovation, along with contributions of civil society organizations and academia. However, most of all it will necessitate the empowerment of fishing people so that they can become active participants in decision making on matters where their well-being and human rights are at stake. By endorsing the SSF Guidelines, states have committed themselves to support and facilitate this development. This book asks whether states can successfully “walk the talk,” and provides advice as to how they can do so. The collection of case studies sets the platform for an interactive dialogue space for researchers, policy makers, civil society and small-scale fishing communities to start the conversation about the monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the SSF Guidelines at local, national, regional and global levels. An added value is that it helps add focus to our work as civil society activists involved in ensuring the application of the SSF Guidelines. Naseegh Jaffer – General Secretary, World Forum of Fisher People (WFFP) This collection offers many ways in which institutions enabling small-scale fisheries can protect and promote sustainability, food security, customary tenure, self-management, and market access, while fostering such benefits as ecosystem-based management, protected areas, incorporation of local knowledge, and poverty alleviation. You will want to put this book in the hands of policy-makers and practitioners immediately -- and for years to come. Evelyn Pinkerton – Professor, Simon Fraser University, Canada

This book offers new perspectives on poverty in small-scale fisheries, introducing innovative concepts and ideas and drawing upon recent knowledge generated by in-depth case studies. The text makes explicit connections with the Sustainable Livelihood Approach and the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries - two prominent frameworks which are recognized, applied and promoted internationally by scholars, practitioners and donor agencies in their work on fisheries development.

The remarkably rich natural environment of Malaysia attracts the interest of both industry and the environmental community. Managing Natural Wealth analyzes major natural resource and environmental policy issues in the country during the 1970s and 1980s-a period of profound socioeconomic change, rapid depletion of natural resources, and the emergence of serious problems with pollution. Managing Natural Wealth is an important up-date to Environment and Development in a Resource-Rich Economy: Malaysia under the New Economic Policy. First published in hardcover in 1997, this pathbreaking book emphasized economics as a source for analyzing the issues involved in environmental and natural resource management in developing countries. The access that Jeffrey Vincent and Rozali Mohamed Ali and the contributing authors had to unpublished data and key decisionmakers made their account an essential reference for policymakers and researchers in Malaysia and throughout the globe. Managing Natural Wealth includes a review of key developments since the 1990s by S. Robert Aiken and Colin H. Leigh, two geographers with a long-standing interest in environmental change in Malaysia and an understanding of the institutional context of its environmental policy that is unmatched in the scholarly community.