What is meant by management strategy evaluation?

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Management strategy evaluation (MSE) in the broad sense involves assessing the consequences of a range of management strategies or options and presenting the results in a way which lays bare the tradeoffs in performance across a range of management objectives. In contrast to some previous approaches to fisheries assessment, it does not seek to proscribe an optimal strategy or decision. Instead it seeks to provide the decision maker with the information on which to base a rational decision, given their own objectives, preferences, and attitudes to risk.

MSE is a simulation technique based on modelling each part of the adaptive management cycle (Figure1). It was developed more than20 years ago to consider the implications of alternative management strategies for the robust management of natural resources, such as single fish stocks. Two very useful reviews of the subject are Butterworth and Punt (1999) and Sainsbury et al. (2000).

Figure1: Adaptive management cycle(Click to enlarge in new window) [1]

The method has been used by bodies such as the International Whaling Commission (e.g. IWC1992, Kirkwood1997) and Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) (de la Mare1996) and has been adopted as a standard fisheries tool in a number of countries including: South Africa (Punt and Butterworth1995, Cochrane et al1998, Butterworth et al1998), Europe (Horwood1994, as of Butterworth and Punt1999), New Zealand (Starr et al.1997) and Australia (Punt and Smith1999).

The strength of the approach is that instead of using a single model to find an optimal solution, multiple candidate models are put forward to evaluate alternate hypotheses. By modelling each step of the formal adaptive-management approach (Walters1986) the consequences of alternate scenarios can be evaluated across the models. The other core strength of the process is that it is consultative - both managers and stakeholders can have input into the candidate models and management scenarios. As the approach demands clear objectives to do the evaluations against, the method forces participants to be clear about their objectives and to specify performance indicators that are in the context of what people are interested in.

Figure2: MSE cycle and questions(Click to enlarge in new window)

MSEs can be performed qualitatively (Smith et al2005), but they have typically been done using quantitative (or at least semi-quantitative) simulations that contain sub-models for each of the main steps in the adaptive management cycle. At the core of these simulations is a "system state" model that represents the dynamics of the resource. As the models were initially used to consider single species fisheries management issues the earliest MSE models included single species models (e.g. IWC1992), or single species with habitat considerations (e.g. Plectropomus leopardus and reef habitat in ELSIM, Mapstone et al.2004). It was not long however, before they were being applied to multispecies questions (e.g.3 species hake and seal model used by Punt and Leslie1995, or the four species and habitat modelled by Sainsbury1988). More recently ecosystem-based management and multiple use management questions have been addressed using the MSE approach. Atlantis and InVitro are two models developed by staff in the CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Division to consider ecosystem-level management questions using the MSE approach. Ecopath with Ecosim (developed at the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver) has also been used in an ecosystem-level MSE (e.g. the overlap of seals and fisheries off Macquarie Island, Goldsworthy et al.2001). Quite a wide range of questions can be addressed using these models (Figure2).

Management strategy evaluation (MSE) in the broad sense involves assessing the consequences of a range of management strategies or options and presenting the results in a way which lays bare the tradeoffs in performance across a range of management objectives. In contrast to some previous approaches to fisheries assessment, it does not seek to proscribe an optimal strategy or decision. Instead it seeks to provide the decision maker with the information on which to base a rational decision, given their own objectives, preferences, and attitudes to risk.

MSE is a simulation technique based on modelling each part of the adaptive management cycle (Figure1). It was developed more than20 years ago to consider the implications of alternative management strategies for the robust management of natural resources, such as single fish stocks. Two very useful reviews of the subject are Butterworth and Punt (1999) and Sainsbury et al. (2000).