Bio-Socio-Economic Fishery Models: Labour Dynamics and Multi-Objective Management

Abstract

Fishery systems involve complex interactions between resource stocks and the people involved in harvesting those stocks. While the population dynamics of fish stocks have received considerable attention in the ecological literature, the dynamics of human communities dependent on the fishery are equally important. Indeed the joint dynamics of the fish stocks and the fishermen must be taken into account in determining appropriate management policies. A bio-socio-economic modelling approach is developed here to incorporate these effects within a multi-objective optimization framework. Fishery labour dynamics are determined by the decisions of individual fishermen with net migration into and out of the fishery (and hence the fishing community) dependent on internal conditions such as per capita incomes and employment rates, as well as on the state of the external economy. The task of fishery management is then one of balancing multiple objectives – such as conservation, income generation, employment, and community stability – subject to fish and fishermen dynamics. Control theory and simulation methods are used to study the bio-socio-economic dynamics of the fishery system and the interactions of multiple management are also discussed.