Effective management of small-scale fisheries is an extraordinarily difficult task. Community-based approaches to management appear to offer important opportunities in certain situations. Extensive experience of such approaches in Japan provides valuable lessons of both the difficulties and the opportunities for this approach. The Consultation examined these experiences as well as others in the Asia and Pacific region. It identified the critical factors that facilitate or constrain community-based management; it identified guiding principles for the adoption and implementation of such systems; and, it made proposals for short- and long-term projects and programmes to encourage increased use of community-based approaches.