The cultures of peoples utilizing living marine resources vary considerably in terms of their overall sizes and cultural characteristics. At one extreme, there are native and community-based small-scale fishers, who often have long-standing, traditional approaches to utilizing certain fisheries, including to fisheries management. At the other extreme are larger scale or more industrialized fishers who care little about the traditions that have pervaded the utilization of a particular fishery, and instead emphasize its exploitation for mainly commercial and income-producing purposes. When these types of fishing cultures or subcultures strive to exploit the same fisheries at the same time, conflicts will almost inevitably arise. Similarly, where fishing peoples have long-standing traditions regarding the exploitation of certain marine species, such as marine mammals, which have become of concern to various environmental and animal-rights groups, conflicts are again practically inevitable. There are also conflicts between fishers and aquaculture and mariculture enterprises, travel, tourism and recreational groups, and other competitors for marine resources, such as agriculture, industrial users and polluters.

In the present document, particular attention is paid to conflicts between native, traditional community-based, and other small-scale fishers, and modern industrial fishers. The importance of sustaining subsistence and commercial exploitation of living marine resources among various types of small-scale fishers is stressed, not only in order to ensure their food security and economic welfare, but also to ensure their cultural existence.

Suggestions are offered for resolving or mitigating culturally based conflicts in fisheries, stressing the importance of sustaining people's subsistence and commercial economies in order to ensure their food security, as well as their cultural survival. A better articulation of the cultural attributes of maritime peoples, and especially their traditional systems of sea tenure, while also helping to empower them politically, is emphasized.