A guide to the literature on traditional community-based fishery management in the Asia-Pacific tropics

This circular is a guide to the literature on traditional fisheries management systems in the Asia-Pacific tropics. The introductory section discusses the geographical distributions of such systems, their principal characteristics including authority, rights, rules, and monitoring, accountability and enforcement. It notes that information on these systems is fragmentary and much remains anecdotal and unsynthesized. It calls for greater research efforts on these systems and highlights some major research issues including the nature of management boundaries an the traditional ecological knowledge base. The main body of the Circular provides, on a country by country basis, a summary of the present knowledge on traditional management systems of marine and estuarine fisheries in the Asia-Pacific tropics based on the literature available to the author. (author)