Chapter 16 Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) and Management Procedure (MP) Implementations in Practice: A review of constraints, roles and solutions

Abstract

The role of fisheries management has substantially changed over the past several years. Poor outcomes from traditional management systems have encouraged scientists and managers to design new tools to manage fisheries. The aim of developing these tools is to abandon the old schemes of prescriptive management and move towards a descriptive management approach. As a consequence, there is an increasing trend among scientists and fishery managers to develop a management approach that enables evaluation of the performance of alternative management strategies for pursuing different management objectives. These systems offer a basis for managerial decision-making by running simulations offering a snapshot of the trade-offs between the various management objectives and test the robustness of the system to uncertainty. Thus, the use of these systems is consistent with the precautionary approach to fisheries management. Currently, there are a few of these systems in operation around the world. They are quite similar and hold much in common with regard to their philosophies and methods. These systems are categorized as management procedures (MP), management strategy evaluation (MSE), and harvest strategy evaluation (HSE). This chapter provides an overview of the constraints and problems encountered in the implementation of some of the systems currently in use focusing on systems that have been in use and widely documented during the last several years.