Experience from around the world shows that managing fisheries and marine resources works best when responsibility is placed in the hands of local communities. This is particularly true in low-income countries, where there is often limited capacity and infrastructure for fisheries management and conservation.
Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) are areas of ocean managed by coastal communities to help protect fisheries and safeguard marine biodiversity.
Found throughout the world’s tropical and subtropical seas, and encompassing diverse approaches to management and governance, their sizes and contexts vary widely, but all share the common theme of placing local communities at the heart of management.
From as far afield as Fiji, Kenya and Costa Rica, LMMAs have proven highly effective in reducing local conflicts over fisheries, conserving marine biodiversity, and improving catches.
Blue Ventures works with communities in Madagascar and the Indian Ocean region, supporting them to establish locally appropriate governance systems for the marine resources upon which traditional coastal livelihoods depend.