In this research the authors evaluate and categorize the fishers’ perspectives on the environmental, economic, social, and legal impacts of transitioning from a private property system to community fisheries in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake. Specifically, this paper uses interview results (N = 523) to assess the perceptions of local communities following a reform in 2012, whereby a commercial leasehold system was replaced with a community-based fishery management system. Results demonstrate that this conversion of fishery management systems is perceived as helping to improve economic, environmental, and legal conditions at the macro-level, but improvements in economic productivity at the individual level are inconclusive.

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