Evaluating fisheries management options in Hawaii using analytic hierarchy process (AHP)

Fisheries management is typically characterized by multiple and often conflicting objectives. The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC) is the authority for managing exclusive economic zone (EEZ) fisheries in Hawaii. The array of multiple objectives coupled with the heterogeneous composition of WPRFMC creates a complex decisionmaking environment for fishery management in Hawaii. In this paper, we applied the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to evaluate four alternatives for limiting entry of longliners into the Hawaii pelagic fishery. We first elicited the factors deemed to be important for a sustainable pelagic fishery using a questionnaire survey, followed by another questionnaire to elicit judgments from all of the individuals involved in the decision-making process of WPRFMC. While there is considerable variation among individuals, the overall weighting of objectives and ranking of alternatives is robust in the sense of being consistent across all four bodies of the WPRFMC. There was no statistical difference in mean results among the WPRFMC bodies at the 5% level. This experience demonstrated an application of the AHP process in fishery management. The results of the present evaluation of the alternatives for limiting entry of longliners are comparable to earlier decisions. As compared to conventional decision making, this process has the advantages of timeliness, quantification, and documentation. It may also provide policy analysts with insights into potential conflicts and tradeoffs before the decision-making process unfolds. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.