Assessing the status of multi-species fishery resources is challenging especially in highly diverse systems, where catches are small, and comprise many species. While ecosystem-based management in such cases requires assessment of the impact of harvesting on many species, this is impractical. Instead, selected ‘indicator’ species can be used to assess the sustainability risk of all ‘like’ species susceptible to harvest within a fishery resource. These indicators are objectively determined using information on their (1) inherent vulnerability; (2) risk to sustainability; and (3) management importance. These attributes are used to develop an overall score for each species which is then used to identify the key ‘indicator’ species. The current risk status of the indicator species determines the risk-level for the biological sustainability of the entire fishery resource and thus the level of priority for management, monitoring, assessment and compliance. The indicator species approach has been used and refined for fisheries management in Western Australia (WA) over two decades with the process now reasonably well understood and accepted by stakeholders.  Case studies involving demersal scalefish resources in North and West Coast Bioregions of WA will be presented to illustrate how this approach works.