ABSTRACT
There is growing recognition of the need to extend more traditional single-species approaches to account for "ecosystem considerations", and hence achieve an ecosystem approach to fisheries. This chapter discusses. MSE approaches that have been developed to include ecosystem considerations as part of fisheries management. Simulation models are increasingly being used to evaluate alternative management approaches or harvest control rules, or to identify the potential for trade-offs among fisheries management objectives. The MSE outputs of Plagnyi et al highlight the complexity of trade-offs between social and economic considerations for islander and non islander participants, as well as the important role of external agency decision-making. A number of ecosystem OMs have been used to explore how ecosystems respond to various forage fish management strategies. Forage fish are small pelagic fish and krill that play critical roles in food webs by transferring energy from small, low trophic level planktonic species to large, valuable species such as large fish, seabirds, cetaceans and pinnipeds.
