A note on the ecological-economic modelling of marine reserves in fisheries

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of bioeconomic modelling of marine reserves, and illustrates how economists have responded to the modelling results found in the ecological literature. The economic analysis is shown to be far more pessimistic with regard to the potential of marine reserves as a fisheries management tool, than what one finds in the purely ecological analysis, the reason being the latter’s neglect of issues such as discounting and economic incentive behaviour. However, the economic analysis, despite some of it being relatively advanced with regard to spatiality, is still simplistic with regard to for instance ecosystem and habitat content. A simple expansion of the existing bioeconomic models with regard to positive habitat effects of area closures is presented and analysed, showing room for improved results from marine reserve implementation as compared to existing analysis.