Marine Protected Areas: a Review on Their Benefits and Designs for Fisheries Management

Abstract

This paper reviews selected economic literature on marine protected areas (MPAs) to examine the extent to which MPAs can effectively support fisheries management. The potential benefits of MPAs are discussed including increased catch and population and providing a hedge against management failure and economic approaches, mostly based on bioeconomic modelling, to MPA design for these benefits. In addition, a discussion on how the MPAs can enhance fisheries management by avoiding the dissipation of benefits and the risk of overexploitation under different management regimes is also provided.