Allocation of harvest between user groups in a fishery with habitat effect

The destructive impacts of fishing on marine habitats may be mitigated through the allocation of catch shares between different user groups. We assess the optimal allocation of harvest across multiple user groups and how fishery outcomes are affected when catch shares are allocated suboptimally. We incorporate the harvest allocation process into a bioeconomic model in which fishing‐induced habitat damage occurs and a single fish stock is targeted by two user groups characterized by fishing technologies of differing environmental impact. Results show that maximizing the overall profit of the fishery often requires the catch share of one of the groups to be set at zero. The effects on biological and economic outcomes of deviating from this allocation to ensure positive catch shares for all groups depend on the strength of habitat–fishery interactions, difference in fishing costs, and whether the suboptimal allocation is made to the high or low impact group.