Fig. 1: We examined two sources for evidence of tenure in 51 countries.

(1) Survey response data in which key informants indicated the presence or absence of territorial use rights (a proxy for tenure) in the institutional arrangements of small-scale fisheries, and (2) Google Scholar literature on co-management, customary marine tenure, territorial use rights for fisheries, and property rights. In 17 countries, key informants either indicated no data (n = 4, yellow), or the absence of territorial use rights (n = 13, red). These countries were not further examined via literature. In 10 countries (dark turquoise), key informants indicated the presence or possible presence of territorial use rights, but no additional evidence was found in the literature. In the remaining 24 countries (light turquoise) in which key informants indicated some evidence of tenure, we found and described 62 marine and freshwater tenure systems from the literature. See Supplementary Figure 1 for a conceptual flow diagram of country selection and a list of countries in each category.