A Proposed Framework for Optimally Managing Fisheries

Abstract

A fishery is an interconnected marine ecosystem where people fish for commercial and recreational purposes. As fishermen continue to fish, the total fish stock depletes, stressing marine ecosystems. Furthermore, climate change and other external environmental stressors continue to damage marine habitats, making fish more prone to dying or migrating to different areas in search of food. This alters the species composition within fisheries. The dynamic nature of these fisheries suggests that fishery managers must find ways to create models that account for increases or decreases in particular fish species and how these changes will affect the state of the current marine ecosystem. To preserve these natural ecosystems and ensure that people can continue to survive and thrive, institutional and governing bodies need to understand how to optimize the yield within these multispecies fisheries. One of the primary issues fishery managers are currently struggling with is the failure and resistance to modeling multispecies fisheries. This resistance stems from data gaps, resource limitations, management inertia, familiarity with single species models, and social constraints that inhibit institutional bodies from addressing the multispecies issue. This paper aims to create a multispecies theoretical model that encompasses interactions between species, which policymakers can rely on to build more precise and effective models. The theoretical framework proposed by this paper calls for the elimination of banking quotas. It also suggests that policymakers must more deeply consider harvest patterns and species interactions when thinking about distributing and allocating quotas to vessels.