Page 17 - Himes_2007

ARTICLE IN PRESS
A.H. Himes / Ocean & Coastal Management 50 (2007) 329–351 345
MPA should be managed to achieve that vision. The most significant difference is seen in
the order of the top five management interventions ranked by each group. Again, ranks
were determined based on the frequency of citation. Managers and researchers tended to
provide similar responses. Both ranked increasing community education and available
information first, followed by improving management organization. However, a far higher
percentage of managers than any other group identified education as an important
management intervention, strongly indicating where their priorities lie. Managers tied
improving management organization with involving the community in management
activities, similarly seen in the top five interventions suggested by fishers and local
residents.
Researchers, however, placed community involvement much farther down on the list of
priorities, replacing it with increasing enforcement and research and monitoring. Again,
researchers were in the only group that gave any significant weight to research and
monitoring. They also suggested that tourism should be organized better, linking it with
the MPA to help teach tourists about the local environment through education and guided
boat trips. Moreover, researchers and fishers were the only groups that suggested
implementing more strict regulations in their top six interventions for reaching success.
This is an interesting result since the activities of both groups are strongly affected by the
regulations. Creating more strict regulations would directly impact the work that both
groups.
Unlike the other stakeholder groups, fishers tended to concentrate specifically on
interventions that directly affect MPA planning and processes as well as outputs that
specifically benefit them. Their answers were also more varied and specific than other
groups. In the top five indicators, they ranked increasing enforcement, organizing
management better, involving the community (specifically fishers) in management,
appointment of a new management body and director, and compensating fishers,
respectively. From these responses, it should be reasonable to suggest that fishers would
prefer to work side by side with MPA managers that value and support the community and
the opinions of local fishers, and will not support the MPA without enforcement of the
regulations. Additionally, fishers suggested a number of management interventions that
illustrate their intense desire to be involved in all aspects of management and have more
strict fishing regulations. The following includes some of their suggestions:

Fishing regulations: regulate mesh size, prohibit fishing for juveniles, limit soak time,
prohibit spear fishing, allow occasional permits to fish in no-take zone.
Zonation: improve the zonation to protect sensitive areas, make the MPA bigger.
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.
The director should be a fisher.

Finally, the responses of local residents closely followed that of the MPA managers, with
slightly different preferences of the top five management interventions suggested. Residents
ranked improvement of management organization, increasing enforcement, increasing