Marine Protected Areas in Fisheries Management

Abstract

Marine protected areas can be used in fisheries to manage the activities of individuals on a spatial scale. The use of marine protected areas has been advocated to overcome some of the problems that arise from non-spatial controls. However, as protected areas do not alter the market incentives of individual operators the economic outcome from their use will be sensitive to the other controls in place in the fishery. Marine protected areas are believed to provide a hedge against uncertain events and population fluctuations through preservation of environmental processes and biomass (Lauck et al. 1998). Bioeconomic modelling of fisheries has shown protected areas can increase yields when stock levels are low (Pezzey et al. 2000, Sanchirico and Wilen 2001, and Greenville and MacAulay 2004), reduce harvest variation for a single biomass (Conrad 1999, Pezzey et al. 2000 and Hannesson 2002), but have the potential to increase harvest variation in a two-species environment (Greenville and MacAulay 2005). The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of marine protected areas used as a tool for fishery management in a two-species, two-patch fishery. The model will be applied to the NSW fishing industry located in the Manning Bioregion.