On marine reserves: rents, resilience and ‘Rules of thumb’

Using a bioeconomic model with two separate forms of uncertainty (a diffusion process and a jump process) a perturbation method is used to determine optimal reserve size for a harvested population with density-dependent growth. The results show that the benefits of reserves are understated in deterministic models and that, even with optimal harvesting, risk neutrality, a persistent population and without initial overexploitation, reserves have a positive economic value. Concavity of the value function with respect to optimal reserve size under uncertainty implies that, for many harvested populations, a positive economic return will arise from initially establishing small reserves, even when harvesting is optimal. The results also lead to general ‘rules of thumb’ when establishing reserves. 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