Non-consumptive values and optimal marine reserve switching

A bioeconomic model is constructed to analyze spatial harvesting and the effects of marine reserve “switching” between a “no-take” area and a harvested area while accounting for both harvesting/consumptive and also non-consumptive values of the fishery. Using estimated parameters from the red throat emperor fishery from the Great Barrier Reef, simulations show that an optimal switching strategy can be preferred to a fixed reserve regime, but is dependent on spillovers from reserves to harvested areas, the nature of shocks to the environment, the size of the non-consumptive values and how they change with the biomass, and the sensitivity of profits to the harvest and biomass. Importantly, the results show that how non-consumptive values change with the size of the fishery substantially affects both the returns from switching and the optimal closure time.