A Reconsideration of the Bioeconomics of Marine Sanctuaries: Commentary on Jon Conrad's Paper

Conrad (1999) examined the bioeconomics of marine sanctuaries and found: (1) a sanctuary that takes up a large share of the potential grounds can make fishing uneconomic, (2) a sanctuary of roughly the same size as the grounds can significantly reduce the standard deviation of the stock on the grounds when both stocks are growing randomly. It is argued that when one divides a fishery into grounds and a sanctuary the firm cost parameter should be adjusted in value as well as the capacity parameters. With this modification one finds that fishing grounds of smaller sizes are more profitable relative to their size than larger grounds and that the reduction in variability of stocks on the fishing ground is relatively smaller.