Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE)

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Management Strategy Evaluation(MSE)

• Bob OBoyle Tana Worcester
• Bedford Institute of Oceanography
• Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Background

• Since 1977, stock assessment in Canada (and
  elsewhere) has focused on counting organisms to
  inform decisions by Fisheries and Aquaculture
  Management
• Stock assessment
• Counts current number of organisms
• Analyses productivity
• Projects impacts on resource of different levels
  of harvesting

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Issues with Approach

• Stock assessment not well integrated into rest of
  fisheries management system (FMS)
• Does stock assessment really meet management
  needs?
• Variability in whole FMS not available to
  managers
• Is stock assessment the problem or enforcement?
• FMS increasing recognized as set of interacting
  systems

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Fisheries Management System
Harvest Control Module
Operating Module
Traditional Stock Assessment
Observation System
Population Ecosystem
Assessment System
Harvest Rules
Decision System
Implementation System
From McAllister et. al. 1999
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Global and National Trend

• Desire to place stock assessment,
  decision-making, enforcement, etc into context
• Developing since mid to late 1990s
• In DFO
• Since 2001, move to stock assessment frameworks
• Assessment module
• 2005 discussion on management framework under
  precautionary approach
• Harvest control rule module

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Fisheries Management Framework consistent with
precautionary approach
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Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE)

• Simulation-based framework for evaluating
  Fisheries Management System as a whole
• monitoring programs,
• stock assessment methods,
• harvest strategies, and
• decision rules.

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DFO and MSE

• SARA Recovery Potential Assessments are the
  nearest to MSE that DFO does
• Species status trajectory
• Recovery reference points potential
• Impacting (all sources) activities
• Alternatives mitigation
• SARA Listing process
• Includes socio-economic impacts
• Evaluates options

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Key Ingredients of MSE

• Simulation of FMS as a whole, including
• Monitoring program
• Measurements that will be made
• How measurements will be analysed used in
  assessment
• How results will be used in management
• How decisions will be implemented
• Development of clear objectives to evaluate
  against - with relevant performance measures
  (indicator vs. reference point)
• Evaluation of feasible management options

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Steps

• Identify issues and objectives
• List performance indicators
• Identify alternative solutions (alternative
  management scenarios)
• Evaluate each management scenario against the
  performance indicators
• Highlight tradeoffs
• Communicate results to stakeholders and
  decision-makers

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Investigation through Simulation

• Alternate hypotheses on ecosystem / population
• Simulation of
• observation system (e.g. hypotheses of acoustic
  surveys)
• assessment process
• decision rule performance
• implementation system

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Not focused on how much resource exists can be
harvested
Conducts comparison of which management strategy
is most robust (reliable) under different
assumptions of uncertainty
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Consequences

• Ecosystem / population
• Greater emphasis on what is know or otherwise
• Observation
• More explicit consideration of uncertainty of
  different approaches impact on rest of FMS
• Assessment
• provides indicators for decision - making
• Could be straight forward
• NOT same as ecosystem / population

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Consequences (cont'd)

• Harvest Control Rules
• What is best for the system?
• Constant F, constant catch, SSB F, etc
• Decision System
• What is influence of deviation from control rule?
• Implementation System
• What is impact of different levels of enforcement
  compliance?

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Qualitative and Quantitative MSE

• Often not possible to be fully quantitative
  (requires complex modelling)
• Qualitative MSE
• Evaluates impacts from high - medium - low
• Can be conducted by a small group of scientists,
  managers and stakeholders
• Results then evaluated by a broader group