Some 200 million people depend on fisheries for some part of their livelihoods. An overwhelmingly proportion of these are in developing countries, where the capacity of national governments to effectively manage fisheries is challenged by insufficient human and financial capital. This frequently leads to weak governance. These governance constraints can often lead to overfishing, and this has been shown to profoundly alter marine ecosystems and threatens the wellbeing of people reliant on them.
Many governments, conservation organizations, and civil society groups are engaging resource users in collaborative arrangements in an effort to deliver better fishery outcomes for both people and the ecosystems they depend on. This is frequently called “comanagement” and is a process that provides people dependent on local resources with greater participation in the decisions influencing the management of these natural resources.
