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ARTICLE IN PRESS
A.H. Himes / Ocean & Coastal Management 50 (2007) 329–351 335
waters, (4) support scientific research, (5) increase the understanding and protection of
local archaeological resources, and (6) promote socio-economic development connected to
the environmental importance of the area.
The EIMR’s management body is currently the city government of Favignana. The
local mayor is the official President of the MPA and has responsibility of insuring
the presence of an MPA director, an advisory board, and that the MPA is being
successfully managed. The Trapani Harbor Master’s Office has the responsibility for
enforcement of the regulatory framework of the MPA and all relevant regional and
national fishing regulations. To date, no management plan has been drafted for the EIMR.
Active management has been based partly on the six objectives stated in the previous
paragraph and partly on the political needs of the current local government’s
administration.

4. Methods

The main objective of the research was to develop an initial set of stakeholder indicators
of ‘success’ for the EIMR. To accomplish this, a semi-structured questionnaire was
designed to elicit a range of stakeholder definitions of ‘success’, to determine how
success can be achieved, to develop an index regarding respondent knowledge of the
EIMR, and to determine how evaluations of MPAs should be conducted in the EIMR.
Demographic information was collected for each respondent, including the category of
respondent, sex, age, education, occupation and activities that the respondent undertakes
in the MPA.
A total of 293 questionnaires were completed. Questionnaires were presented in face-to-
face interviews to 50 fishers, 208 local residents, 12 MPA management officials and 23 local
researchers (mostly biologists). Questionnaires were presented to fishers at their fishing
vessels, to MPA managers at their offices, to researchers at local universities, and to local
residents in bars and cafes in the center of town on each island. All data collection took
place between January 17 and March 31, 2004. Due to low population numbers, a census
was attempted for the populations of fishers, management officials and researchers. A
random, stratified sample was taken of local residents; an attempt was made at
interviewing an equal number of men and women.
The questionnaire was centered on three open-ended questions:

What do you think are the most important resources of the Egadi Islands
(environmental, cultural, and economic) and the most important threats to those
resources?
Please describe your own vision of what a successful EIMR would be. Complete the
following sentence: In my opinion, the EIMR would be a success in the future if/when
y
What management initiatives would need to be undertaken to achieve your vision of
success?

To test stakeholder knowledge of the MPA’s regulations, respondents were asked to
respond to five questions regarding the regulations of the MPA. Furthermore, respondents
were asked a series of nine opinion questions about the state of the MPA, and three
questions regarding the need for an evaluation of MPA management.