Community-based management and co-management are mainstream approaches to marine conservation and sustainable resource management. In the tropical Pacific, these approaches have proliferated through locally-managed marine areas (LMMAs). LMMAs have garnered support because of their adaptability to different contexts and focus on locally identified objectives, negotiated and implemented by stakeholders. While LMMA managers may be knowledgeable about their specific sites, broader understanding of objectives, management actions and outcomes of local management efforts remain limited. We interviewed 50 practitioners from the tropical Pacific and identified eight overarching objectives for LMMA establishment and implementation: (1) enhancing long-term sustainability of resource use; (2) increasing shortterm harvesting efficiency; (3) restoring biodiversity and ecosystems; (4) maintaining or restoring breeding biomass of fish or invertebrates; (5) enhancing the economy and livelihoods; (6) reinforcing customs; (7) asserting access and tenure rights; and (8) empowering communities. We reviewed outcomes for single or multiple objectives from published studies of LMMAs and go on to highlight synergies and trade-offs among objectives. The management actions or ʻtoolsʼ implemented for particular objectives broadly included: permanent closures; periodically-harvested closures; restrictions on gear, access or species; livelihood diversification strategies; and participatory and engagement processes. Although LMMAs are numerous and proliferating, we found relatively few cases in the tropical Pacific that adequately described how objectives and management tools were negotiated, reported the tools implemented, or empirically tested outcomes and seldom within a regional context. This paper provides some direction for addressing these research gaps.

ABSTRACT. In many developing regions of Melanesia, fishers' traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) has been integrated with western science and management knowledge (SMK) to generate innovative and effective fisheries management. Previous research suggests that three factors initiate this process: depleted fishery stocks, limited SMK, and ownership of resources by local communities. In other contexts the extent of power-sharing through comanagement, and the cultural significance of species may also be important determinants of knowledge integration. Here we assess the role of these factors in the application of TEK in the Torres Strait Islands, Australia, where commercial and subsistence fisheries are fundamental to the Indigenous Melanesian culture and livelihoods. In 2009 we surveyed fishery managers and scientists who revealed that TEK had only been recently and sparingly applied in four fisheries (turtle, dugong, lobster, and hand collectables), and only two of the seven species concerned had a combination of depleted stocks, low SMK, and high community ownership. Instead, comanagement characteristics and the cultural value of species were the primary determinants of TEK application. We suggest that turtles and dugong are cultural keystone species that simultaneously provide important ecosystem services to both islanders' livelihoods and international conservation interests. Combined with their ecological scale these species have catalyzed comanagement between indigenous and government stakeholders, precipitating the application of TEK in other fisheries of lesser cultural importance. We discuss modifications to governance required to enable knowledge integration to evolve further through adaptive comanagement, and its role in enhancing fisheries management and thus the resilience of the Torres Strait social-ecological system. Our study highlights the potential utility of cultural keystone species in stimulating cross-cultural resource governance in developed economies such as Australia.

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Early one morning, a small group of Fijian villagers gathers on the beach. In front of them are the mudflats, mangroves, and coral reefs that make up their qoliqoli-their traditional community-owned fishing grounds that have sustained their village for generations. From a distance, they look just like other groups in the past that have gone out to harvest resources. But this group is carrying compasses, tape measures, metal quadrat frames, and clipboards. They are not going fishing. Instead, they are harvesting data to monitor the community-managed marine protected area that their village has established.Too often, monitoring seems to be relegated to outside scientists who collect only data that interest them or complex data that cannot be used by resource managers and users. If there is one thing we have learned from our work in Fiji, it is that not only can communities do good monitoring, but also, ultimately, involving the community in monitoring leads to conservation success in all sorts of unanticipated ways. The Ucunivanua ProjectOur story begins in the early 1990s when residents of Ucunivanua village realized that the marine resources they depended on were becoming scarce. One example was the kaikoso, a clam found in the shallow mudflats and seagrass beds. Elders of the village remembered how in the past, a woman could go out and in a few short hours, collect several bags of large kaikoso for her family or market sale. Now, however, a woman could spend all day on the mudflats and end up with only half a bag of small clams.About this time, we and other colleagues from the University of the South Pacific and the Biodiversity Conservation Network began a conservation project with the Ucunivanua community. In our planning meetings with the community, one problem that came up over and over again was the dwindling stocks of marine resources. One solution the community identified was to return to their traditional management practice of setting up tabu areas-regions of the qoliqoli that were temporarily closed to fishing. The community decided to experiment by setting up a 24-hectare tabu area on the mudflat and seagrass bed directly in front of the village in the hope that it would lead to increased clam harvests in the adjacent downcurrent areas.The community appointed 20 men and women to be on the tabu area management team. The team first staked out the boundaries of the proposed protected area. They then worked with the paramount chief and elders of the village to hold a traditional ceremony declaring the area tabu for the following three years.While the tabu area was being set up, we worked with the management team to develop and implement simple monitoring methods. Using pictures, stories, and examples, we discussed the theory of monitoring and the basic ideas of sampling and statistics. The team then practiced line transects, first on dry land and then in the water. They selected a random compass bearing within both tabu and non-tabu areas, laid out a tape measure, and then sampled the number of clams with...

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