The discourse on solutions to address small-scale fisheries concerns in the Pacific tends to focus heavily on community-based forms of co-management. Decentralizing governance to the community level permits responsiveness and specificity to local dynamics, not possible through hierarchical governance. It also allows for proper recognition of the (often legally backed) customary rights of local resource owners, common throughout the Pacific. Partnerships between communities and governments, NGOs or research organizations draw together knowledge, expertise and institutions to develop and implement co-management arrangements. In exploring Solomon Islands as a case study the authors find that interactions between community-based, co-management (a form of co-governance), and self-governance (particularly customary institutions) are fundamental for contextualizing and 'fitting' management to the community level - and that this helps to account for the exceptionally high social and ecological diversity and complexity of Solomon Islands.