From reactive towards anticipatory fishing agents

Governing human-environmental ecosystems is a complex problem. Rule-based fisheries models are faced with several challenges. First, for large geographical problems like oceans, they require considerable time to find satisfactory solutions. Second, they tend to be reactive rather than anticipatory. Behavioural assumptions directly impact fishers’ capacity for adaptation and behaviour, which influences possible management strategies. To capture style and speed of adaptation to changes in the environment, coupled human-environment models must progress toward cognitively and socio-culturally realistic representations of fisher decision-making. In this paper, we implement the erotetic decision-making model in the POSEIDON fisheries model. The agents replicate observed behaviours such as fishing the line of a Marine Protected Area, using Individually Tradable Quotas, and returning to favoured fishing locations, and learning to break rules given harsh constraints. This provides a principled proof that reasons-based cognitive structures allow for anticipatory behavioural adaptation rather than reactive behavioural adaptation.