Food security versus environment conservation: A case study of Solomon Islands' small-scale fisheries

• A bio-economic model for Solomon Islands' small-scale fisheries.
• Comparison of scenarios at time horizon 2050 in terms of food security and biodiversity conservation.
• Analysis of the capacity of the ecological system to sustain socio-economic and development goals.
• Identification of viable strategies.

The sustainable management of small-scale fisheries in coral reef ecosystems constitutes a difficult objective not least because these fisheries usually face several worsening pressures, including demographic growth and climate change. The implications are crucial in terms of food security as fish represents the major protein source for local populations in many regions reliant on small-scale fisheries. The case of the Solomon Islands’ fishery presented in this paper represents an illustrative example of these issues. The paper proposes a bio-economic model based on the local fishery that accounts for multi-species and multi-fleet dynamics and integrates calibrated Lotka–Volterra trophic dynamics. Several contrasting fishing scenarios are tested and their results compared using two biological indicators (Simpson index and species richness) and two socio-economic indicators (fish consumption and cash income). The simulations identify the conditions under which fishing outputs including subsistence and profitability of fishing can be sustained for the next forty years.