This paper aims at investigating the effects of population pressure, westernisation- urbanisation and marine tenure systems on the status of reef finfish resources in two South Pacific countries. Finfish resource, total catch and per capita fresh fish consumption decreased with increasing westernisation-urbanisation, supporting a direct link between fishing and population pressure. Unconventionally, we suggest that in the communities surveyed the interest for fish consumption and fisheries diminishes with increased westernisation-urbanisation due to the available nutrition and income alternatives. Significant variations of fishing levels suggest that the level of exploitation is the predominant factor in structuring fish populations observed. Fishing pressure was found to initially affects biomass through size, and then density. Findings indicate a direct relationship between resource status and user level. Because marketing may be more influential than marine property systems, the final decision to which marine tenure systems add to urbanisation-westernisation influences to fishing pressure and thus status of reef fish needs further analysis.