This paper examines the involvement of coastal communities in fisheries management among the Countries of the Gulf of Thailand—Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Initiatives to decentralize management to local governing bodies, to utilize traditional management methods and to engage in community agreements to protect local resources are explored. An examination of recent experiences indicates some movement toward more local involvement in management. While Malaysia seems slow in developing community based management, the project in Langkawi represents an innovative case study. In Vietnam, traditional rules and customs in the communities offer important support to an integrated community-based resource management approach. For example, the Ha Lien village community successfully identified the problems they faced and discovered the solutions they needed for sustainable resource use. The lack of legal recognition threatens long term sustainability. An examination of this set of experiences across the Gulf of Thailand countries indicates that community-based fisheries management needs to be flexible so that it can adapt to the needs of the individual community in each habitat or locale. Even within the same country, implementation may be different based on agreements and laws in effect in that particular area, as well as culture and tradition. However, the study also leads to several suggestions for the future : in Vietnam and Cambodia, there is a need for significant legislation to control fisheries operations and greater clarity of the role of communities in management; in Malaysia, there is an overall need for more support to local fisheries management; and in Thailand, the need is for greater support of local-level enforcement and monitoring activities