Storage and viability of a fishery with resource and market dephased seasonalities

In this study we analyse the role of the storage regulation in a fishery's production process when the resource exploited and the market to which the production is exported are characterized by seasonal dephased oscillations. For this purpose we built up a dynamic model drawn from the French Guyana shrimp fishery example. The underlying objective of the model is not the ma ximisation of a given criterion (as would be in the optimal control approac h), but merely the maintenance of the fishery's economical viability. The f undamental principle is here to try to preserve as many as possible viable control options. The conditions to achieve and maintain this viability are captured in a certain number of constraints. The analysis points out period s and situations within the season where the fishermen must anticipate the evolution of their storage to avoid violating those viability constraints. The study also indicates how the fishery's viability can be ensured even if the exploitation costs exceed the commercial value of the landings for a f inite part of the year. However, when the resource's and/or market's oscill ations are too large, the fishery may be not viable any longer and it appea rs that the crisis can not be removed by investing in larger storage capaci ties.