Abstract

The success of fishery management is greatly influenced by the level of support from resource users, and it is therefore crucial to ensure that the expectations of managers and resource users are transparent. Cooperation between these groups can be enhanced through the inclusion of local knowledge in fishery assessments, but this is rarely done in practice. The purpose of this study was to compare temporal and spatial trends in species-specific abundance derived from local knowledge and biological data, to understand the circumstances under which different perspectives of the same resource are correlated. We also compare perceptions of resource trends among stakeholder groups, to elucidate some of the potential biases that affect interview responses. Respondents’ age and length of experience at the study site both affected their perceptions of changes in fish abundance over time. Older, more experienced fishers tended to disagree with the biological survey data more than younger inexperienced fishers, suggesting that perceptions were influenced by a shifting baseline syndrome. Individuals who were more dependent on the resource for income had more negative opinions regarding the effectiveness of the reserve. We show that while trends in local knowledge and biological data are sometimes related, there are many instances where perspectives of the same resource differ. Therefore, even when resource managers and resource users can come to agreement on management goals and objectives, discord regarding reserve effectiveness may still occur. Further efforts to include local knowledge in resource assessments are likely to provide more accurate assessments of changes in ecosystems.