PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 27: Marine Populations Under Harvest
Monday, August 8, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 519 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Spatial bioeconomic models and fisheries management.

Neubert, Michael ^*,1, Herrera, Guillermo², ¹ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institiution, Woods Hole, MA² Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME

ABSTRACT- Most analyses of spatial fisheries models assume a single owner whose goal is the maximization of sustaibable yield. These analyses ignore the redistribution of fishing effort in response to economics and regulation. We will describe a simple, spatial, bioeconomic model that accounts for the open-access nature of most marine fisheries. We haved used the model to find the maximum sustainable economic rent that can be obtained using various policy instruments (including taxes on aggregate effort, taxes on aggregate catch, effort quotas and catch quotas). We contrast these solutions to the rent-maximizing distribution of effort employed by a sole owner and to the distribution of effort in unregulated open access (when all profits are dissipated). In every case, the solution contains unexploited regions in space. The locations of the unexploited regions, and the potential sustainable rent that results, depends upon which policy instrument is employed.

Key words: bioeconomics, fisheries management, marine protected areas, spatial control