The FishPath approach for fisheries management in a data- and capacity-limited world

Successful fisheries management systems tend to be underpinned by harvest strategies, specifying formally agreed data collection systems, assessment approaches and management measures used to regulate fishing pressure. While harvest strategies can be effective even in data- and capacity-limited (DCL) situations, their development remains challenging in such contexts. We present a process and decision-support tool, FishPath, to guide the identification of suitable harvest strategy component options given often debilitating conditions: (i) resource limitations and lack of technical management capacity; (ii) ‘uniqueness’ of DCL fisheries; (iii) the concept of harvest strategies is unfamiliar to managers and scientists, and the universe of options is hard to navigate; and (iv) the lack of an effective participatory process to identify solutions tailored to local contexts. These conditions can lead to either management paralysis or generic solutions that may be poor fits to specific conditions. The FishPath Tool uses a diagnostic questionnaire that elicits the key characteristics and specific circumstances of a fishery. It compares these with the requirements of alternative options from an inventory of possible harvest strategy components, identifies where these requirements are met and provides customised, transparent guidance on the appropriateness of component options of a harvest strategy, specific to the fishery of interest and its governance context. The FishPath Process is a facilitated multi-stakeholder, participatory engagement process aimed to set fisheries on the path to develop a harvest strategy. The FishPath Process and Tool combine to ensure a bottom-up, documented, transparent, replicable and efficient process.