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Optimized fishing through periodically harvested closures

Paul G. Carvalho, Stacy D. Jupiter, Fraser Januchowski-Hartley Orcid Logo, Jordan Goetze, Joachim Claudet, Rebecca Weeks, Austin Humphries, Crow White

Journal of Applied Ecology, Volume: 56, Issue: 8, Pages: 1927 - 1936

Swansea University Author: Fraser Januchowski-Hartley Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1111/1365-2664.13417

Abstract

1. Periodically harvested closures (PHCs) are a traditional form of fisheries management that improve fishing efficiency during harvests, partly by reducing fish wariness to fishers during closed periods. However, whether PHCs also result in high yields and healthy marine ecosystems is unknown, even...

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Published in: Journal of Applied Ecology
ISSN: 0021-8901 1365-2664
Published: Wiley 2019
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa50900
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Abstract: 1. Periodically harvested closures (PHCs) are a traditional form of fisheries management that improve fishing efficiency during harvests, partly by reducing fish wariness to fishers during closed periods. However, whether PHCs also result in high yields and healthy marine ecosystems is unknown, even as PHCs are being promoted as a culturally appropriate management tool in the Indo-Pacific.2. We integrated field-derived estimates of change in fish wariness into a bioeconomic fisheries model to quantify to what degree PHCs can maximize harvest efficiency, fisheries yield and fish stock biomass.3. Our model indicated that PHCs that had a closure period of one to a few years between a single pulse harvest were able to generate equivalent fisheries yield and stock biomass levels, with greater harvest efficiency than was able to be achieved using permanent closures and other fisheries management tools.4. Fish life-history traits had little impact on the optimality of PHCs in maximizing the triple objective of harvest efficiency, fisheries yield and stock abundance, with overfishing similarly having little effect at anything under extreme levels. Under moderate overfishing, there was a trade-off between PHCs, which maximised harvest efficiency, and no-take permanent closures that maximised yield. However, the former outweighed the latter, and only at extreme levels of overfishing, where stock was reduced to < 18 % of unfished biomass, were permanent closures favoured over PHCs.
Keywords: bioeconomic model, conservation, fish behaviour, fisheries management, marine protected areas, marine reserves, periodically harvested closures, population dynamics
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Issue: 8
Start Page: 1927
End Page: 1936

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