Selecting management methodologies for marine resources, with an illustration for southern African hake

Abstract

There are many different methodologies which could be used in the management of renewable marine resources. In order to manage a particular resource appropriately, it is necessary to select those methodologies which perform most satisfactorily for that resource. In this paper, an approach is outlined which can be used to select such a "best" methodology from a set of alternatives for a particular situation. The approach involves applying alternative methodologies to a large number of data sets generated by a model of the situation and using that model to examine the consequences of each application. The approach is applied to select model-estimation and management procedures for the Cape hake resources off southern Africa. The observation error form of the Butterworth-Andrew model performs the best of the model-estimation procedures investigated, and the Maximum Allowable Catch strategy is the most satisfactory harvesting strategy of those considered. These results are relatively robust to model structure and the parameter values for the actual situation.