Biological Outcomes: The value of Customary Marine Tenure for sustainable resource use, Volume 3.

Volume 3 provides detailed analyses of the data relating to the fishery resources and of their customary management, which were summarised in Volume 2 (Country report for Vanuatu, Volume 2a; and Country report for Fiji, Volume 2b). The results of analyses of the fishery appraisals undertaken through underwater visual census, and those from the fisheries monitoring programme are presented. Results are presented for data gathered at both managed (tabu) and un-managed, or open access (control) areas within fishing sites for Fiji and Vanuatu. The analyses here have been undertaken specifically to examine the status of resources at each of the study areas, and to evaluate if there was any measurable benefit from management actions at tabu areas. There are six chapters to this volume: the introduction outlines the background to the research and describes the expected effects of fishing and management on fishery resources; the second chapter presents the results of underwater visual census studies which examined habitat variability and differences in species assemblages by area and is entitled 'Fishery-independent assessment of management effects on community fishery resources in Fiji and Vanuatu data' ; the third (Univariate analyses of data from the fisheries monitoring programme) and fourth chapters ('Univariate analyses of data from the fisheries monitoring programme, Fiji') examine uni-variate analyses of all-species abundance indices and fishing effort by study area, and those of biological parameters for key study species from the fishery monitoring programme; a fifth chapter ('Reef fish assemblages and management interventions in Vanuatu and Fiji') presents multi-variate analyses of species and family abundance from the fishery monitoring programme to determine differences in species or family assemblages by area; and the final chapter draws together and summarises the information contained in chapters and is entitled 'Biological Outcomes: Has customary management been successful? Discussion and Conclusions'. Annexes to this volume provide detailed information to explain the analyses described in each chapter.