Harvest Control Rules

Abstract

Harvest control rules (HCRs) and management procedures (MPs) are used after stock assessment to determine the desirable amount of catch to achieve specified management objectives. These rules play a core role in linking the scientific stock assessment and practical fisheries management activities. Robust HCRs with respect to uncertainties are required for sustainable resource management, especially in light of the uncertainties inherent with fluctuating environmental conditions and climate systems. HCRs have to be evaluated to ensure that they maintain optimal biological production, stock size, and economic efficiency, but these objectives are not always compatible. Recently, a management strategy evaluation (MSE) framework for fisheries resource management has been developed that creates operating models (OMs) to simulate virtual population dynamics and evaluates the performance of the HCRs based on different strategies. We discuss feedback HCRs, which are one of the most effective strategies to manage fluctuating fisheries stocks. Feedback HCRs are empirical approaches to adjusting fishing intensity by sequentially updating information through the continuous monitoring of the state of the target stocks in response to present management activities. We also show a case study to test the performance of feedback HCRs with the aim of applying them to manage Japanese fish stocks and recommend allowable biological catches (ABCs).