Maximum Sustainable Yield - History

History

The concept of MSY as a fisheries management strategy developed in Belmare New Jersey in the early 1930s. It increased in popularity in the 1950s with the advent of surplus-production models with explicitly estimate MSY. As an apparently simple and logical management goal, combined with the lack of other simple management goals of the time, MSY was adopted as the primary management goal by several international organizations (e.g., IWC, IATTC, ICCAT, ICNAF), and individual countries.

Between 1949 and 1955, the U.S. maneuvered to have MSY declared the goal of international fisheries management (Johnson 2007). The international MSY treaty that was eventually adopted in 1955 gave foreign fleets the right to fish off any coast. Nations that wanted to exclude foreign boats had to first prove that its fish were overfished.

As experience was gained with the model, it became apparent to some researchers that it lacked the capability to deal with the real world operational complexities and the influence of trophic and other interactions. In 1977, Larkin wrote its epitaph, challenging the goal of maximum sustained yield on several grounds: It put populations at too much risk; it did not account for spatial variability in productivity; it did not account for species other than the focus of the fishery; it considered only the benefits, not the costs, of fishing; and it was sensitive to political pressure. In fact, none of these criticisms was aimed at sustainability as a goal. The first one noted that seeking the absolute MSY with uncertain parameters was risky. The rest point out that the goal of MSY was not holistic; it left out too many relevant features.

Some managers began to use more conservative quota recommendations, but the influence of the MSY model for fisheries management still prevailed. Even while the scientific community was beginning to question the appropriateness and effectiveness of MSY as a management goal, it was incorporated into the 1982 United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea, thus ensuring its integration into national and international fisheries acts and laws. According to Walters and Maguire, an ‘‘institutional juggernaut had been set in motion’’, climaxing in the early 1990s with the collapse of northern cod.