Harvesting and conserving a species when numbers are low: Population viability and gambler's ruin in bioeconomic models

Abstract

In bioeconomic models of renewable resources, population viability is either ignored entirely or the minimum viable population (MVP) is considered a crisp threshold below which a species is driven to extinction. Neither is consistent with ecological science. The purpose in this paper is, firstly, to enhance ecological realism in economic models by incorporating insights regarding population viability from conservation biology. We consider the effects of chance on optimal management and briefly discuss key results regarding population viability as derived by biologists. Second, as a means to 'balance interests and morality', we suggest a fuzzy compromise between the economist's and the biologist's preferred stock sizes. © 200l Elsevier Science B.V.