ECOLOGICAL-ECONOMIC MODEL FOR OPTIMAL MANGROVE TRADE-OFF BETWEEN FORESTRY AND FISHERY PRODUCTION - COMPARING A DYNAMIC OPTIMIZATION AND A SIMULATION-MODEL

Mangrove ecosystems provide valuable ecological services for the maint enance of the adjacent habitats and wildlife preservation. They also p rovide a highly caloric timber, used frequently for burning purposes a s, e.g. charcoal. The forestry activity usually ignores the capacity o f the mangroves to support the local fisheries. Therefore, it is neces sary to study the relationship between these activities and how they c ould be managed in order to maximize their benefits, and at the same t ime to preserve ecosystem services. This problem was approached by two different modelling procedures, widely used in natural resources mana gement studies: a dynamic optimization and a simulation model. The dyn amic optimization model gave us some hints about the best allocation o f workers between forestry and fishery sectors. Using the simulation m odel it was possible to take the data generated and employ it in our f irst order conditions equations from the optimization model to find th e shadow prices for the resources stocks. The most important variable in the simulation is the forest growth rate, since the fishery product ion is directly dependent on the area of mangrove forest. (C) 1998 Els evier Science B.V. All rights reserved.