"The majority of the world's fisheries are not – and never will be – managed by strong centralized governments with top-down rules and the means to enforce them," according to Nicolas Gutiérrez, a University of Washington doctoral student in aquatic and fishery sciences who is lead author of a paper that goes online Jan. 5 in the journal Nature. "Our findings show that many community-based co-managed fisheries around the world are well managed under limited central government structure, provided communities of fishers are proactively engaged.
Encouraging new evidence suggests that the bulk of the world's fisheries – including small-scale, often non-industrialized fisheries on which millions of people depend for food – could be sustained using community-based co-management.
"Community-based co-management is the only realistic solution for the majority of the world's fisheries and is an effective way to sustain aquatic resources and the livelihoods of communities depending on them."
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