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Small-Scale Sicilian Fisheries 391

which specifically protect the marine environment (Kelleher, Bleakley, & Wells, 1995).
Italy alone has established 20 nationally protected MPAs since 1982, three of which are
located in the waters off of Sicily. In addition, the Sicilian regional government estab-
lished a number of fishery exclusion zones during the 1990s as an integral component
of regional coastal management.

What is becoming an integral component of MPA management in both the Mediter-
ranean and other regions of the world is the need to incorporate socioeconomic and
cultural factors into all decisions made regarding MPAs, from the design and implemen-
tation of an MPA to day-to-day management decisions. When the idea for a new MPA
is first proposed, many stakeholders react negatively, believing that the reserve will
prevent them from recreational and commercial fishing, diving, or even experiencing the
resources in the area in a nonconsumptive way. This often results in hostilities and
protests against the reserve, in both violent and nonviolent ways, affecting both short-
and long-term success. If stakeholder groups do not believe that the reserve will benefit
them and are against its establishment, compliance with the regulations will be low
(Hanna, 1995), protests commonly break out (Sant, 1996; Suman, Shivlani, & Milon,
1999), and the reserve becomes ineffective as a “paper park” (Jentoft, McCay, & Wil-
son, 1998). Russ and Alcala (1999) and Pomeroy et al. (1997) have shown that once the
community understands the need for a reserve and the benefits that it can provide them
in the long term, they will comply with regulations and support for the MPA within the
community will increase.

Especially in indigenous communities, stakeholder groups, such as local residents
and fishers, have significantly contributed to management, providing historical catch
trends, relative comparisons in the state of the environment between the past and present,
new and culturally relevant management strategies, and methods to gain the respect and
trust of the community (Jentoft, McCay, & Wilson, 1998; Jentoft, 2000; Brown & Pomeroy,
1999; Russ & Alcala, 1999). Moreover, interested stakeholders can be trained to teach
user groups about the reserve and how they can be involved in the management. Finally,
enforcement by the community through peer pressure and discouragement is normally
more effective and less costly than typically used government enforcement (Wells &
White, 1995). While becoming widely practiced in the Caribbean and Asia Pacific, how-
ever, this type of stakeholder involvement has not necessarily been encouraged in Sicily
and the Mediterranean. Here, local knowledge and community participation have been
used only to a relatively small extent.

Two terms are referred to in this article that commonly have different meanings in
the primary literature: MPAs and marine reserves. The definition that this article follows
equates the two terms to the following: any area of the marine environment managed for
the primary purpose of preserving biodiversity, aiding in the recovery of overfished
stocks and to ensure the persistence of healthy fish stocks, fisheries, and habitats either
as a multi-use area (where different types of resource uses are managed in the same
area) or no-take zone (where no activities are allowed). This is a common definition
used for Italian MPAs, the subject of this article.

This article provides an analysis of the effectiveness of management and regulations
in two MPAs established in Northwest Sicily, the Egadi Islands Marine Reserve, and the
Gulf of Castellammare Fishery Reserve. Despite the recent enthusiasm in Italy and the
Mediterranean for creating MPAs and studying their biological effects, few socioeco-
nomic or cultural studies have been conducted on the impact of MPAs on local popula-
tions and visitors (Badalamenti et al., 2000). This article provides the first of this type of
analysis and focuses on how effectively or even whether local management regimes in
these marine reserves incorporate local stakeholder interests, principally those of local
artisanal fishers. This study attempts to document three issues in the management in