Strategic Management of Marine Ecosystems Using Whole-Ecosystem Simulation Modelling: The ‘Back to the Future’ Policy Approach

Abstract

`Back-to-the-Future' (BTF) attempts to solve the `fisheries crisis' byusing past ecosystems as policy goals for the future. BTF provides anintegrative approach to the strategic management of marine ecosystemswith policies based on restoration ecology, and an understanding ofmarine ecosystem processes in the light of findings from terrestrialecology. BTF employs recent developments in whole ecosystem simulationmodelling that allow the analysis of uncertainty, tuning to past biomassestimates, and responses to climate changes. It includes new methods fordescribing past ecosystems, for designing fisheries that meet criteriafor sustainability and responsibility, and for evaluating the costs andbenefits of fisheries in restored ecosystems. Comparison of ecosystemsbefore and after major perturbations, including investigation ofuncertain ecological issues, may set constraints as to what may or maynot be restored. Understanding how climate and ocean changes influencemarine ecosystems may allow policies to be made robust against suchfactors. A new technique of intergenerational discounting is applied toeconomic analyses, allowing policies favouring conservation, as the sametime as addressing economic standard discounting of future benefits.Automated searches maximise values of a range of alternative objectivefunctions, and the methodology includes ways to account for uncertaintyin model parameters. The evaluation of alternative policy choices,involving trade-offs between conservation and economic values, employs arange of economic, social and ecological measures. BTF policy alsoutilizes insight into the human dimension of fisheries management.Participatory workshops attempt to maximise compliance by fostering asense of ownership among all stakeholders: ideally, collaboration byscientists, the maritime community, managers and policy-makers may buildintellectual capital in the model, and social capital in terms ofincreased trust. BTF may help to reverse the shifting baseline syndromeby broadening the cognitive maps of resource users. Some challenges thathave still be met include improving methods for quantitativelydescribing the past, reducing uncertainty in ecosystem simulationtechniques and in making policy choices robust against climate change.Critical issues include whether past ecosystems make viable policygoals, and whether desirable goals may be reached from today'secosystem. Examples are presented from case studies in British Columbia,Newfoundland and the Gulf of St Lawrence in Canada; the Gulf ofCalifornia, Mexico; the Bali Strait and Komodo National Park inIndonesia; and the South China Sea.