As marine resources become increasingly stressed through climate change and escalating demand, the need for new and successful management approaches grows. One such approach is Territorial Use Rights for Fishers (TURFs), in which eligible fishermen (often locals) have exclusive rights to fish, and from which others are excluded. TURFs have most commonly been applied to the management of benthic species, and for relatively small scale fisheries, with TURF fishermen setting their own catch limitations or participating in processes to do so. In theory, TURFs are expected to provide resource users with incentives for sustainable resource use and to comply with management initiatives on their own accord. The question that emerges is, “Are TURFS flexible enough and scalable enough to effectively address these problems to help sustain a broad range of fish stocks, ecosystems, and marine conservation?” While it may appear that the “grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”, there are limitations to the fisheries problems that TURFs can solve. The Ninth Florida State University Mote Symposium will examine the conditions under which TURFs provide desirable social, economic, institutional, and ecological outcomes, and then push forward to find the boundaries of their applicability. Please see the Call for Papers and Developing Program for a full description of the symposium. Guidance for submitting abstracts appears under Contributed Talks and Posters.

Contributed papers welcome