ABSTRACT
Bob Johannes was writing about what he called the data-less management of tropical nearshore fisheries, using some combination of MPAs and traditional knowledge and management systems. His deliberately pro - vocative language did attract criticism from those who could not quite subscribe to the notion that “management should be judged by its fruits, not by its roots” (Johannes 1998b, p. 245). But, if traditional management can be characterized as “data-less,” in the sense of lack of stock assessment and other numerical data, it is important to point out that it is information-rich in time-tested knowledge of the environment and rules
for collective action to put that knowledge into play. What was uncon - ventional in the 1990s is not so anymore. Appreciation of the value of local and traditional knowledge of coastal people has increased sub - stantially since Johannes’s time (Menzies 2006; Haggan et al. 2007; Lutz and Neis 2008).
