Europole Mer : research consortium on marine science and technology in Brittany

Management Strategy Evaluation addresses the challenge for contemporary society of managing competing human uses of, and effects on, natural resources. ELFSim is a decision-support tool designed to evaluate options for managing coral trout and red-throat emperor in the Reef Line Fishery on the GBR. It contains several components, including output visualisation and run management, but the most important components are spatially-structured biological models of coral trout and red throat emperor population dynamics and a model of fishing behaviour.

We evaluate the merits for managers and stakeholders of alternative strategies for managing the coral reef line fishery on the GBR. The objectives for the future status of coral trout, and more recently red-throat emperor, have been developed from a series stakeholder workshops. Fishery objectives included preserving spawning biomass in areas closed to fishing at near pre-exploitation levels, ensuring adequate population levels for harvest, maintaining economical catch rates and recreationally rewarding catches.

This work highlights some of the inevitable trade-offs of management. These trade-offs are evaluated in relation to objectives specified by a range of stakeholders in the fishery. In doing so we hope that the costs and benefits of different management options are more transparent, and that this leads to effective management for a sustainable fishery.