Our understanding of the combined impact of human activities and natural stresses on marine ecosystems and the cumulative sociocultural effects of rapid change is by and large deficient (Fast and Berkes, 1998; Csonka and Schweitzer, 2004; Young and Einarsson, 2004; OMRN, 2006).
Ocean management needs to be steered towards an ecosystem approach that allows the use of both science-based and community-based knowledge (UNEP, 1998; OMRN, 2006) and implicitly recognizes that natural resources are part of a cultural landscape (deGroot and Ramakrishnan, 2005).
Community-based initiatives are proving to be responsive to the integrated ecological and social dimensions of the resources and their uses (Csonka and Schweitzer, 2004; OMRN, 2004; Tremblay et al., 2006).
In particular, community-based monitoring is cost-effective and able to incorporate the complexity inherent to coastal management issues (OMRN, 2004).
Halifax: Ocean Management Research Network (OMRN) Secretariat.