A bioeconomic analysis of marine reserves for paua (abalone) management at Stewart Island, New Zealand

Traditional fisheries management relies on the imposition of gear and/or effort restrictions. In spite of much experience with such techniques, the danger of fishery collapse is ever present. Biologists have advocated an alternative strategy, the establishment of marine reserves. However, it is possible that the benefits of marine reserve creation can be overstated if economic behaviour is ignored. In spite of being managed under a system of transferable quotas, the Stewart Island paua (abalone) fishery has been in decline for some time. We develop an integrated economic and biological model of this fishery and use it to predict biomass levels in a number of scenarios, including the imposition of a network of no-take areas. We identify circumstances under which the marine reserve solution outperforms traditional management techniques. We show that the benefit of a marine reserve is highest when a fishery is heavily exploited and when accounting for stochastic recruitment.