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ABSTRACT Human population growth, rising incomes, and increased commercialization of marine resources promote demand for reef fish, yet few studies in Indonesia have examined how artisanal fisheries are influenced by the socio-cultural conditions that contribute to their exploitation. This study examined artisanal fisheries of Karimunjawa National Park, Java, to understand how the condition of an artisanal fishery was related to socio-cultural factors, along a gradient in fishing pressure., A total of 8674 fishes landed in Karimunjawa by fishers using four artisanal fishing gears were examined to understand how the condition of the artisanal fishery (standard and infinite fish length, trophic level and weight) related to fishing gear use, village fishing grounds, management, human population size, human population density and estimated fishing pressure., Depletion in fish lengths and trophic structure were found at or above 46 fishing trips day-1 km-2, suggesting that fishing pressure is a key factor driving fishery catch structure. When catch characteristics were examined in relation to the fishing pressure estimates from each village, negative correlations were found between inshore fishing pressure (no. trips day-1 km-2) and all four fish catch characteristics, but owing to small sample sizes (n = 5), only the effects on trophic level were significant., Fishery closures had limited impact on fish characteristics, and lack of any effect of spatial controls on fishing also supports the notion that fishing pressure and the types of fishing gears used, most likely driven by human population densities, are the greatest drivers of reef fish catch characteristics in the Karimunjawa fishery., In the absence of support for fishery closures from local fishing communities or adequate enforcement of fishery closures, targeted gear or species management strategies that limit impacts on large-bodied fish and aim to conserve key species may be more effective in improving the size and trophic structure of fish populations., Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article evaluates artisanal multi-species coral reef fishery in Papua New Guinea by examining line fishing, spearguns and gill nets. It mentions that gill nets have the disadvantage of being destructive to coral and the advantage of catching commercial species while line fishing catches an intermediate number of species but mostly predatory species that could potentially reduce predation and the mean trophic level of the fishery. It suggests that spearguns could reduce the diversity of fish and encourage algal growth because it catches the highest number of species including herbivorous and many noncommercial fish. Due to this, the author recommends local restrictions on the use of these three gears to restore and balance the fishery and ecosystem.

Managers and conservationists often need to prioritize which impacts from climate change to deal with from a long list of threats. However, data which allows comparison of the relative impact from climatic threats for decision-making is often unavailable. This is the case for the management of sea turtles in the face of climate change. The terrestrial life stages of sea turtles can be negatively impacted by various climatic processes, such as sea level rise, altered cyclonic activity, and increased sand temperatures. However, no study has systematically investigated the relative impact of each of these climatic processes, making it challenging for managers to prioritize their decisions and resources. To address this we offer a systematic method for eliciting expert knowledge to estimate the relative impact of climatic processes on sea turtles' terrestrial reproductive phase. For this we used as an example the world's largest population of green sea turtles and asked 22 scientists and managers to answer a paper based survey with a series of pair-wise comparison matrices that compared the anticipated impacts from each climatic process. Both scientists and managers agreed that increased sand temperature will likely cause the most threat to the reproductive output of the nGBR green turtle population followed by sea level rise, then altered cyclonic activity. The methodology used proved useful to determine the relative impact of the selected climatic processes on sea turtles' reproductive output and provided valuable information for decision-making. Thus, the methodological approach can potentially be applied to other species and ecosystems of management concern., (Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)