Intervening to Achieve Co-Operative Ecosystem Management: Towards an Agent Based Model

We propose an advanced agent-based modelling approach to ecosystem management, informed and motivated by consideration of the Fraser River watershed and its management problems. Agent-based modelling is introduced, and a three-stage computer-based research programme is formulated, the focus of which is on how best to intervene to cause stakeholders to co-operate effectively in ecosystem management, and on the objective discovery and comparison of intervention strategies by way of computer experimentation. The agent-based model outlined is technically relatively complex, and several potential difficulties in its detailed development are discussed. Types of ecosystem intervention strategy that might plausibly be discovered or recommended by the model are projected and compared with those currently advocated in the literature.