Uncertainty and the Active Adaptive Management of Marine Reserves: WORKING PAPER

Researchers: Grafton, Quentin R (Author) ,  Kompas, Tom (Author)

Brief description This record describes, and links to a working paper produced through the Crawford School of Economics and Government at The Australian National University in Canberra. ***** Unpredictable environmental fluctuations are a major problem in fisheries. To mitigate these uncertainties, reserves are advocated to help ensure population persistence, reduce population and harvest variance and to provide a hedge against management failures. Using recent insights from the modelling of marine reserves that indicate that reserves can generate a win-win in terms of economic payoffs and ecological benefits, we propose a six-step process for managing reserves with uncertainty and argue in favour of initially establishing less than desirable reserve sizes where stakeholder resistance to reserves may be preventing their implementation.

Notes Purpose
To investigate the potential benefits of marine reserves in mitigating uncertainty and the policy implications for the design and establishment of reserves.