The MIMP revenues from tourism and other activities are used to support the villagers in many different ways, such as:

• Pay school fees.
• Build village level infrastructure.
• Organise learning exchanges, site visits.
• Alternative livelihoods development, such as beekeeping, seaweed farming, dhow construction.

There is a clear cut of 20% net revenue that is allocated to the VLCs council for supporting actions in each village.

The MIMP was established primarily to conserve biodiversity, and end highly destructive fishing practices used by migrant fishers. It was also in the interest of the local fishers. However, it was essential to take in account the inhabitants' needs and reliance on the natural resources. So, on one hand, the MPRU staff provided environmental conservation and awareness raising on resources use & management, and on the other hand, they improved the infrastructures for schooling, health and water supply. Law enforcement is also applied towards culprits and community members reluctant to follow the rules. In turn, the villagers who respect them are encouraged and praised.

The MIMP is managed by the Marine Parks and Reserves Unit (MPRU), which is the government office in charge of marine protected areas, together with the Village Liaison Offices, that were put in place in each of the 11 villages of the Park. 

The participatory management approach applied by both parties, has built a strong foundation for communities members to participate in the decision-making. Different methods were applied to foster broad participation, such as meetings with VLO and other stakeholders, focus group discussions with different resource user groups, special interviews and discussions with key and influential people.

By their nature, small-scale fisheries tend to have limited, poorly systematized data and short time scales. This scarcity of information represents a challenge for understanding, for example, the interaction of fishing gear with the ecosystem and its impact on the habitat; such information is fundamental in the implementation of a fishery improvement project. Around the world, different methodologies have been developed to generate information on the impacts of the fishery on the ecosystem; one of them is the modeling based on the Ecopath program with Ecosim.
COBI used this tool including information generated by fishermen and fisherwomen through fishing logs, as well as biological and ecological information for the species that inhabit the fishing zones. In addition, to strengthen the model, the traditional ecological knowledge of the fishing communities was integrated through the application of interviews, from which relevant information was obtained on the diet of the species, their geographic distribution, reproductive season, etc.

To achieve success in the sustainability of fishery resources, there must be active participation of diverse stakeholders (fishing communities, government sector, academia, civil society organizations and the market). In 2018, COBI began monitoring the costs (economic and in-kind) associated with the implementation and development of fishery improvement projects. From this exercise, it was documented that generally at the beginning of the projects, philanthropy makes the largest economic investment through CSOs, while fishing communities make it in-kind (e.g. making their boats available for activities), and other actors also participate (e.g. government bodies or academia). The objective of community co-investment is to ensure that, over time, the fishing communities become organized and committed to continue paying the costs associated with this type of project, and to achieve greater financial autonomy. COBI and the fishing communities jointly developed a written strategy with a five-year term, in which the communities commit to maintain a gradual percentage of economic contributions to achieve co-responsibility and manage the project on their own.

The purpose of community deliberation is to facilitate the process of social learning for residents about protected area management through stakeholder-driven discussions. Social learning is the change in understanding that occurs amongst individuals and groups through social interactions. A number of participatory approaches can be taken to facilitate social learning; we used community deliberation through an online discussion forum. The online discussion forum encompassed a four-week activity that residents participated in asynchronously. Residents were given a new topic prompt to address weekly and were encouraged to focus on responding to comments left by fellow residents. Weekly summaries were generated and feedback was also elicited to ensure the summaries accurately reflected residents’ deliberations. Over 400 responses and comments were posted by 37 residents on the discussion board throughout the four-week period. The last prompt asked residents what they had learned from participating in the forum, followed by a survey questionnaire administered online to measure other shifts in values, perceptions, or behaviors as a result of participation.

Since the consolidation of the Public Use Program (PUP), which requires that the TSP have accredited guides and captains; CONANP with support from Niparajá have given these accreditation courses. During 2016, 95 guides and 35 captains were trained; in 2017, 64 guides and 36 captains were trained; in 2018 a total of 60 guides and 16 captains were trained; and in 2019, 97 guides and 39 captains were trained. As of 2019, and with the aim of providing tourism service providers with more and better knowledge of the ecosystem, three different courses were developed: a basic course for captains who are presenting themselves for the first time; a basic course for new guides; and an advance course for guides and captains who have been working for more than a year at the NPA. The advance course considers the presentation of talks given by experts on topics not considered as shark biology, whale watching or the population dynamics of fish. The training courses are valid for one year for guides. After one year, an evaluation is applied; if it is successful the new guides can participate in the advanced course, otherwise they will have to participate in the basic. The courses for captains are not valid, only the basic course is mandatory.

The Garbage Medical Insurance program is a micro health insurance program that uses garbage as a financial resource. With this program, the community and unensured poor slum dwellers are able to pay for health cover, drugs, and other clinical services by using garbage as payment to an insurance scheme. This, in turn, improves their access to medical treatment and the quality of public health programs with respect to promotive, preventive, curative, and rehabilitative well-being mainly targeting slum children below 5 years and expectant women. It further offers the community an incentive to start organized waste management and waste entrepreneurship system from the household level so as to benefit from continual health insurance.

In order to clean up the city of its plastic waste, we have established a stable and profitable company and tackle the problem of waste pollution at the point of generation by attaching social, environmental, and economic value to plastic waste. We collect waste plastics from the streets and landfills, we also allow the community to exchange their waste plastics with medical insurance coverage, this helps us to collect enough waste plastics to manufacture plastic lumbers, this has helped us a lot to change the community’s attitude towards waste management.

An innovative, chemical-free, and less energy consumption technology to recycle and transform post-consumer plastic waste into affordable and durable plastic lumbers which are an alternative to expensive timber to ensure a cleaner and healthier environment while reducing effects of climate change, deforestation rates, and giving better margin to our customers.