Fisheries Management Toolbox: A Fishers' Self-Assessment Scheme Toward Sustainable Development of Coastal Communities

Fisheries co-management is a resource management regime that closely cooperates with local fishers' activities and administrative agencies' legal management measures. In Japan, historically the fisheries policy has been implemented through co-management. In order to promote and to improve fisheries co-management, new tool is required for fishers to evaluate their own activities and to utilize their self-assessment results for the next visions and plans toward sustainable development of coastal communities. In this research, the concept for self-assessment scheme toward sustainable development of coastal communities was introduced. Then, fishers' workshops were conducted at two areas where faced with different situations, and the practical solutions were discussed. Fisheries management toolbox allows us to identify and prioritize important management measures for improvements based on their self-assessments by fishers. And fishers can utilize fisheries management toolbox as a tool to promote their discussion about improvements for next activities.