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and how they should be sustained. In contrast, it provides a detailed account of the scientific

data and the potential for the traps as a data source.

If we are to take seriously the goals of a four-pillar model of sustainability, or at least

recognise the importance of socio-cultural elements to the management of marine resources,

then the proposal and future decision-makers must consider how to define and measure socio-

cultural elements. This needs to include, what legislative initiatives might look like that

achieve specific outcomes for fish and for fishers. The first step should be to acknowledge the

regulatory pressures that have in part lead to the demise of a local harvest and processing

industry. The second step is to undertake a more thorough social study of the traps to better

understand the relationship between the trap as gear and the knowledge, skills and labour that

have created, maintained and innovated that gear. An expanded framing of the traps to

include the harvest and processing is essential. This is to re-imagine culture, not simply as a

backdrop but as the very substance of resource use and management. This is especially

important when considering one of the recommendations of the proposal, which is that

national governments take steps ‘to promote the urgent conservation of the few remaining

tuna traps, by considering, among others, the possibility to ask for their inclusion within the

“World Cultural Heritage” by UNESCO’ (Ambrosio & Xandri 2015, p. 47).

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