ANSWER 1

Written response:

Adaptive management is a participatory and ‘experimental’ approach to coping with uncertainty in fisheries systems. Another way of understanding adaptive management is as ‘learning by doing’ in the fishery management process. Based on a set of management objectives, changes are made to the system, and the outcome of these changes monitored closely. Adaptive management is particularly important and effective where system change is likely due to factors such as climate change.

For this approach to be successful, there needs to be really good feedback systems in place that can pick up system changes and report them to a management authority, who can in turn respond through further iterative changes aimed at reaching management objectives.

Small-scale fisheries are highly diverse globally. In developed economies small-scale fisheries are often relatively low volume, high value fisheries. In contrast, in least-developed economies they often provide large numbers of households in coastal and inland waters with essential food, nutrition and income where there are few other options. For the first, there tends to be a lot of high-quality data available, while for the second, data tend to be poor or non-existent.

Despite these differences, there are important commonalities. Small-scale fishers are uniquely connected to their working environment, and that puts them in a great position to provide key feedbacks that are vital to successful adaptive management systems. Adaptive management is also well-suited to managing fisheries in data-poor settings. Perhaps not much is known about the fishery, however desired ‘trajectories’ can be set, agreed management changes implemented, and outcomes monitored by fishers or managers/scientists.

To be successful, adaptive management requires:
·       Strong collaborative management institutions that bring resource users/owners and other management actors together.
·       A clear set of agreed guiding principles and objectives for management.
·       Well-developed monitoring systems with targets and indicators that are very closely focused on management objectives.
·       A regular process of re-assessing the status of indicators, the effectiveness of indicators, and refining management actions to achieve agreed objectives.

Regulation to support adaptive management must therefore support these key system functions and requirements. Policy should focus on approaches that support the architecture of such a process, while entrusting the details of the management actions and evaluation to the collaborative adaptive management group.