Abstract
This paper evaluates the implications of managing fisheries to achieve a B MEY target, or a biomass level that maximizes net economic returns in the fishery, and discusses the role of private ownership and the trade‐offs between economic and conservation benefits in this setting. The paper shows how a B MEY target can be used to: (i) determine relative employment and profitability measures; (ii) account for both the harvesting and processing sectors; and (iii) incorporate the interests of consumers and producers of fish. The profits–employment trade‐off of adopting a B MEY target vs. a traditional B MSY target is calculated using a model and data from the Western and Central Pacific tuna fisheries (WCPTF), while a generic bioeconomic model is constructed to show numerical values of B MEY from including processing and/or retail sectors and the consumer benefits of harvesting fish. For the WCPTF, results show that the long‐term gains per job lost from pursuing a B MEY target are worth several times the value of the average GDP per capita of Pacific Island Countries. The generic bioeconomic model shows that including a processing and/or retail sector, as well as measures of consumer benefit, lowers the B MEY target. However, there remains a broad range of parameter values for which B MEY is still greater than biomass at maximum sustainable yield, or B MSY . The paper also illustrates cases where B MEY > B MSY at different values of the price elasticity of demand, margins for processing and/or retail sectors and values of the discount rate.