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Performance Indicator Importance in MPA Management 615

Table 4
Coherence of group clus-
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ters found by Zahir’s al-
gorithm (Zahir, 1999)

Cluster n Coherence
A 2 0.980
B 1 n/a
C 7 0.935
D 5 0.949
E 14 0.911
F 10 0.925

which agreed to be interviewed. Their backgrounds are extremely diverse, ranging from
the militarily oriented Harbor Master, to the politically oriented mayor and current director,
to the ex-director who returned to a previous position as a biological researcher; all of
whom come from different ideological backgrounds that would be expected to view MPA
management from disparate standpoints and sets of beliefs.
Second, due to the EIMR’s controversial past, very few local people have remained
passive and many tend to be strongly opinionated. Some of the variation can be explained
by the respondents’ sources of income. Both fishers and residents can be divided into two
separate groups depending on the interest the respondent has in the tourism industry: those
who make money from tourism and those who do not. For example, three fishers in the
sample have begun to take up pescaturismo in order to profit from the tourism industry
as well as fishing. Equally, many residents have started businesses that cater to tourists
(indicated as tourism operators in Figure 5). It therefore should not be surprising that
fishers are spread over clusters C–E and residents are spread over clusters B, C, E, and F.
Third, the extent of variability found in ranking priorities for performance indicators in
the EIMR proves just how diverse and largely heterogeneous fishery and MPA stakeholders
can be. A potential explanation is that individuals with interest in how the EIMR is managed
are not clear on what the MPA is meant to accomplish and therefore have different concepts
about the EIMR’s purpose. This could be problematic for MPA managers and the Ministry of
Environment as they keep trying new management interventions without having complete
consensus among stakeholders as to the purpose of the MPA. In addition, because they
form the least coherent group, there is potential that managers will always be in conflict
with one another, potentially having a detrimental effect on management efficiency and
the achievement of MPA goals and objectives. The same can be said for other stakeholder
groups. For fishers and residents specifically, until significant work is done within the
local community to reach consensus on what is expected from the MPA, support for
management may never be able to increase. EIMR managers can now use this information
to better understand how local interests are organized and for insight into how they can
better collaborate with the local population.

Conclusions: Applying the AHP to the EIMR and MPA Evaluations

For the most part, the objectives and criteria used in MPA management and evaluation are
incompatible (Brown et al., 2001; Unerman & Bennett, 2004). The main reason behind