Effort allocation and marine protected areas: is the North Sea Plaice Box a management compromise?

A complex bioeconomic model is used to study the economic and biological consequences of establishing a marine protected area (MPA). The model is a multispecies age-structured bioeconomic model that treats days at sea and number of vessels, for different fleets fishing inside and outside the protected area, as endogenous variables. A simulation applies an adaptive investment rule that determines fleet size from year to year, and an optimization procedure provides a benchmark for a profit-maximizing solution over time. In contrast to most conventional studies on MPAs, fishing within the protected area is possible. Moreover, the stock is not divided between inside and outside the protected area, although the abundance of different age classes in each area differs. Therefore, the economic and biological impacts of fishing inside or outside are different. The North Sea flatfish fishery is used as a case study, so the analysis is particularly relevant because North Sea flatfish regulation is currently under revision