Sustaining small-scale fisheries with periodically harvested marine reserves

Spatial marine closures are widely employed and advocated for marine resource management and conservation. Temporal, non-permanent, rotational or periodically harvested area closures have been employed across the Indo-Pacific for centuries and are a common measure within contemporary community-based and co-management frameworks. Although prior evidence suggests that periodic closures may confer fisheries benefits for some taxa or in certain conditions, there is little evidence that they are equally effective for the sustainable management of the many types of small-scale fisheries important in the Indo-Pacific. Case studies of periodic closures are reviewed to highlight the variations in target species, harvesting periodicity and fishing pressure that will influence the fisheries management effectiveness of this tool. Fisheries management benefits are observed for short-lived, fast-growing taxa or for a range of taxa in low fishing pressure situations. Stocks declines are observed for long-lived taxa or for a range of taxa if harvesting is intense. It is argued that community-based and co-management policy and action must better account for these factors when promoting and implementing periodic closures for medium- to long-term fisheries management or conservation goals.

► A framework is developed to assess fisheries management outcomes from periodic closures.
► Eighteen cases show outcomes depend on taxa, harvesting periodicities, fishing pressure.
► Fisheries are sustained for short-lived fast-growing taxa or low fishing pressures.
► Stocks decline for long-lived taxa or if closures are short or harvesting intense.