Page 9 - HimesAH(2007)
P. 9
• Control and limit vessel discharges (recreational boating and shipping);
• Enforcement: give enforcement responsibility to fishers, constantly enforce the MPA;
• Give work to fishers with the MPA;
• Provide compensation for fishers: start a biological rest period, contribute to
renovating fishing vessels;
• Managers must include fishers in management activities; and
• The director should be a fisher.
Discussion
One of the more significant challenges faced by those interested in and responsible for MPA
management is to refine understanding of the linkages between different aspects of
management and stakeholder points of view, each of whom will have distinct opinions
regarding what aspects of management should be prioritised. Inherent in those linkages are
potential conflicts that can develop between various interests and render MPA ‘success’
difficult to achieve. In the face of such conflict, performance indicators and evaluation
schemes must be adapted to assist decisionmakers in modifying and designing appropriate
management plans that attempt to improve overall performance and management
effectiveness. This is especially true in the Mediterranean basin where few if any evaluations
of MPA management have been undertaken and almost all research focuses on the biological
aspects of MPAs, completely ignoring the socioeconomic components (Badalamenti et al
2000, Himes 2003).
The present research has attempted to confront this by arguing that the definition of
‘success’ must be created with input from concerned stakeholders in conjunction with MPA
managers, and stakeholder identified performance measurements must be determined and
tested to verify the overall success of individual MPAs. Arguably, these measurements of
‘success’ should be determined in concert with the local community in order to take into
account the factors that they find most important and to address future areas of conflict. At
the same time, local or external researchers should develop ongo ing monitoring programmes
and indepth research into the individual definitions of ‘success’ and relevant measures of
success given by different stakeholder groups (Alder et al 2002).
In fact, some of the key difficulties with defining ‘success’ that have been presented
in this study are its multidimensionality and the problem of how the various components of
MPA performance can be combined and reached simultaneously. An additional difficulty
confronted in the present analysis is the conflicting nature of priorities assigned to
performance indicators by individuals of the same stakeholder group.
The task set in this study was to address some of the fundamental problems of MPA
evaluation by shedding light on the theoretical concept and development of competing
stakeholder criteria for ‘success’ and measuring management performance. The empirical
basis for the study is laid by a case study in the Egadi Islands Marine Reserve (EIMR), an MPA
in great need of performance evaluation and acceptance by local fishers. It represents a
situation where neither the management nor local fishers believe that the MPA is successful,
but where all fishers have drawn different conclusions on what would make the MPA a
success in the future. By analysing the interactions and conflicts between fishers present in
the EIMR, numerous insights were gained into the management of MPAs and stakeholder
perceptions and preferences.
One of the most important insights discovered is the approximate level of importance
that fishers assign to a variety of components of MPA performance. It is clear from both the
fisher nominated performance indicators and management interventions that they tend to
