INTO DYNAMIC SPATIAL MODELS OF FISH AND FISHERMEN Daniel

Marine protected areas have been widely touted as both as an insurance policy against fishery management failures and as an integral part of an optimal management strategy for some fisheries. However, incorrectly sized or located MPAs may actually increase the risk of depletion or collapse of some species, and can easily reduce the sustainable value of the system of fisheries they impact. Furthermore, the impacts of MPAs may compromise the stock assessment data and models that are used to guide other fishery management decisions. If MPAs are to be used effectively as an integral part of fisheries management, new models and data gathering programs are needed. This paper discusses the reasons for incorporating explicitly spatial dynamics of both fish and fishermen into fishery models that can be used to design and evaluate MPAs as well as guide other management decisions. It also highlights some of the constraints on this type of modeling and proposes an iterative procedure for ameliorating them.