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In 1993 a study of coastal villages in Vanuatu revealed that within the previous three years there had been a rapid increase in marine resource management (MRM) activities. The initial impetus for these events was the Vanuatu Fisheries Department's promotion of a voluntary, village-based trochus management programme. Initially the programme involved only a few fishing villages out of a total of several hundred. The Department surveyed their community trochus stocks, advised the people that regular several-year closures of their trochus fishery, followed by brief openings, would generate far more profit than the usual practice of harvesting continually. They left it to the villagers to decide whether or not to act on this advice.