Marine reserve creation and interactions between fisheries and capture-based aquaculture: A bio-economic model analysis

Abstract

The rapid growth of aquaculture affects wild fisheries in several ways. We present a bioeconomic model of the interaction between a commercial wild fishery and capture-based aquaculture that depends on harvest of wild juveniles. We assume that aquaculture reduces the intrinsic growth rate of the wild fish stock due to wild caught juveniles used as seeds, influencing wild stock size and commercial harvest. This may increase the economic conflicts between fishers and farmers. Introducing a marine protected area is expected to reduce these conflicts. The model considers both open access and economically optimal management regimes outside the marine protected area using numerical simulation. The numerical results show that a marine protected area of a certain size may increase economic benefits of both fishers and farmers in the case of optimal management, and enhance wild catch outside the reserve when there is open access.