Protecting marine biodiversity: a comparison of individual habitat quotas and marine protected areas

Fisheries managers in the United States are required to identify and mitigate the adverse impacts of fishing activity on essential fish habitat (EFH). There are additional concerns that the viability of sessile noncommercial species, animals that are habitat dependent and (or) are themselves constituents of fishery habitat, may be threatened by fishing activities. We propose a system of individual habitat quotas (IHQ) to achieve habitat conservation and species protection cost effectively. Individual quotas of habitat impact units would be distributed to fishers with an aggregate quota set to maintain a target habitat "stock". Using a dynamic, spatially explicit fishery simulation model, we explore the efficiency and effectiveness of an IHQ policy versus marine protected areas (MPAs) for conserving habitat-dependent, sessile species of unknown spatial distributions. Our findings indicate that an IHQ policy with a conservatively established habitat target is better suited to the protection of sessile nontarget species than a rotating or fixed MPA policy.