Book Description

This book is presented in seven Chapters. Chapter 1 describes the basic assumptions underlying the optimal allocation of natural resources and the inherent characteristics of fisheries that determine, under unrestricted access, the failure to allocate resources, economic inefficiency and overfishing. To mitigate these undesired effects, the bioeconomic literature invokes the allocation of property rights, which in turn must be implemented within a management context. Thus, in this Chapter we suggest some guidelines to conduct management plans. Static and dynamic bioeconomic models are presented in Chapter 2 as a theoretical framework for the design of intelligent management schemes aiming at sustainable use of fish stocks. Classic models are shown, such as the Gordon-Schaefer based on the logistic. We also develop new bioeconomic approaches, such as a distributed-delay model to add realism to Smith's fleet dynamics approach. Chapter 2 also includes an introductory version of a bioeconomic yield-mortality model, and dynamic age-structured models. A comparison of the dynamic and static trajectories is stressed. The price of time and its implications for optimal resource allocation over time is also discussed. For the sake of adding realism to the above models, the systems approach is used in Chapter 3 to model different technological and ecological complexities that occur in marine fisheries. Ecological interdependencies (competition, predation), as well as technological interdependencies resulting from fleets with different fishing power and/or gear types, operating on components of a stock, or on different target species of a "mixed stock", are specified and modelled.