Optimal Harvest from Fisheries

Abstract

Issues of optimal use of renewable resources are typically complicated because the resource owners need to take into consideration not only the size and quality of the resource, as well as the technology and opportunity cost when extracting from a stock, but also the growth dynamics characteristic of the biological populations they deal with. Additional problems are incurred in the case of free access, as we have seen in the context of common property resources. Management issues are still relatively tractable when dealing with resources that are easily monitored and “cultivated,” as in the case of forests or sheep. Significant additional problems arise, however, when the resources are mobile, common property, and fluctuating in size considerably from year to year. This is the case for marine fisheries modeled in this and the following chapters.

Nature must be considered as a whole if she is to be understood in detail.

G. Bunge, Philosophical and Pathological Chemistry, 1902