Small-scale fisheries of remote islands within the Pacific are often challenged with inadequate information and data. With rapid ocean-related challenges such as climate change and overfishing becoming increasingly experienced worldwide, the need to understand the status of Pacific Island small-scale fisheries is becoming increasingly recognised. With small-scale fisheries being critical to the survival of many coastal communities, lack of information creates difficulties predicting any ongoing environmental changes. Therefore, establishing baseline fishery data and identifying trends within remote island fisheries may reveal threats to food security and livelihoods, and opportunities to minimise them.

In this thesis, I draw on a case study on the island of Mitiaro, Cook Islands to address three approaches of obtaining fishery information in the Pacific that form an overall holistic approach to understanding remote Pacific Island fisheries. My first approach was by collecting specific life-history trait information of two coral reef fish species heavily targeted for consumption. The population dynamics of these species highlighted a very rapid growth in size and suggested that they quickly reach sexual maturity. In terms of the species’ importance and contribution to Mitiaro’s subsistence fisheries, this information may suggest a level of resilience to fishing pressures and thus being able to make inferences towards food security measures. The second approach involved the collection of catch data of the Mitiaro fishery. This provided a broader lens of the Mitiaro fishery by establishing family/species catch ratios, identifying fishing techniques, and calculating catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) of both coral reef and nearshore pelagic fishes – valuable information to identify ongoing changes and long-term trends. Lastly, the third approach to understanding the Mitiaro fishery was by analysing its socio-ecological components. In terms of resource management, it is important to recognise what should be obvious: when managing a resource, success relies on managing people. Therefore, understanding the social anatomy of key actors, including the worldviews, existing knowledge, practices, cultural traditions, and governance systems associated with a fishery is essential to developing and implementing successful resource management strategies.

This thesis aims to address the data and information paucity that could prove critical to developing resilience in Pacific Islands remote communities by adapting to the growing challenges these communities face. Collecting from a wide range of sources of fishery information can be useful to identifying appropriate avenues for resource management. Although this case study applies to a local context, the overall holistic approach is adaptable and may be applied to understand other Pacific Islands remote small-scale fisheries.