ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a popular model of natural resource management using fisheries and forests as the central examples. These are both renewable resources because their supplies can increase over a reasonable time period. The chapter discusses the pros and cons of available policy options and the policy implications of uncertainty. This curve shows the relationship between the size of a fish stock and the growth in that stock per period. Small fish stocks do not propagate rapidly, in part because mates are scarce. A critically depensated growth function has stable equilibria at each extreme and an unstable equilibrium at the minimum viable population. A fish stock smaller than the minimum viable population cannot reproduce as fast as fish are dying, and eventually collapses. Fish have been an important source of protein since before protein sources set foot on land, but fish consumption by humans has increased dramatically over recent decades.
