We regularly organize beach cleaning-up campaigns at weekends, especially during vacation periods with students, to collect plastic bags and garbage. We communicate with the community through the local community radio and public events.

Fisherman are addressed in their work place in informal conversations aiming to raise awareness on the impacts of their behavior. They are also regularly invited to participate in training sessions in which scientific data is shared. This expresses the need of changes in their behavior. We share scientific data such as conservation status of loggerhead turtles as an endangered species due to plastic ingestion, ocean pollution and other human actions (UICN). We also share information such as the prediction by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the World Economic Forum that “there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050” if we do not change our behavior.

The community is divided into 2 groups, children and adults. The children regularly participate in beach cleaning campaigns on weekends and help taking sea turtles hatchlings to the sea. Adults participate in harder work such as beach night patrols and collecting plastic from the sea.

This building block helps to identify the factors that threaten sea lion populations with a spatially-explicit, multifactorial approach. The outcome is a set of prescribed actions for each population in the same geographic realm, depending on their diagnostic characteristics, avoiding an “all-purpose” general, possibly ineffective solution. For each colony or population of sea lions, a set of environmental factors is selected and described with a historical perspective. Examples of relevant factors are: sea temperature, upwelling index, pH, chlorophyll, diet composition of sea lions, microbial load, heavy metals. Next, a group of drivers are identified as influencing the region of interest and for a given year, their influence in factors is determined and qualified. Drivers can be: ENSO, climate change, over-fishing, pollution. The end result could be that only a few or several colonies could be affected, even in the same geographical region or sub-region.

Surveying fishermen allows a valuable insight to what is being landed across Morocco - and in what quantities, if species are effectively reported and if not why not, what methods are being used to catch elasmobranch species and if species are being heavily targeted for commercial purposes or simply by-catch. Through this we have understood that many fishermen have little or no knowledge of laws and restrictions on shark/ray species and that many international and national trade/catch policies are not translated from management level to the fishermen themselves – who are unaware they are breaking laws. We are therefore working with artisanal fishermen to establish the beginnings of a species education program and on basic training in DNA data collection from their landed catches.

Volunteers are trained to conduct genetic sampling and necropsies and to gather data by monitoring landings and surveying fisherman. This creates an opportunity for conservationists and concerned citizens to have a positive impact and learn new skills for the benefit of species conservation. This has also enabled the collection over a wide area of a vast amount of viable data for scientific studies. Ultimately it means that Fin Fighters are able to provide a much needed data resource in data deficient areas for poorly understood populations. The participants are trained to ID species from various body parts and to take ID images for our data bank. Some of our volunteers request to be taught more in-depth collection skills such as sampling either in situ on the ports, or in controlled environments. Others further their involvement by learning how to carry out necropsies and to extract samples of specific material – such as sperm, or stomach contents for later study. The volunteers (or Citizen Shark Scientists) are also taught how to survey fishermen, and fishing equipment, and to understand fishing methods.

The results of the project have been shared with Belize’s Ministry of Forest, Fisheries and Sustainable Development (including Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute and National Climate Change Office) and the Ministry of Tourism to facilitate replication, and uptake of the process and recommendations. The results have also been shared with local communities, local NGOs, land developers and the private tourism sector to build capacity, awareness and implementation of greener landscape practices within the coastal zone.

During the planning phase extensive formative research informs the Social Marketing, as well as the Technical Assistance components of a campaign. Research sets the baselines that allow the assessment of social and conservation impacts following a campaign. Qualitative research (e.g. focus groups, observation, in-depth interviews) is geared towards understanding target audience opinions, feelings, concerns and perceived benefits of current as well as desired management practices. Qualitative research is about creating a casual conversation with and between participants to establish a comfortable relationship, and to reveal underlying information unobtainable through quantitative research. Quantitative research surveys capture specific answers to specific questions to describe demography, identify media preferences, and assess the current state of knowledge, attitude, communication and readiness of target audiences regarding a certain behavior change. Both components ultimately inform campaign decisions like objectives, respective activities, materials, and messages for both Social Marketing and Technical Assistance.

This is the essential building block toward creating an effective MPA at the Costa Rica Dome. It is still In process. The steps already taken are stimulating, through conferences and meetings, discussion at national, regional and international levels. This process was started by presenting the idea with a case study in Marine Protected Areas for Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises (Hoyt, 2011) and an associated campaign, and, crucially, working closely with the Central American (Costa Rica based) NGO MarViva.

Alternative adaptation options were analyzed via the Marine InVest tool to identify costs and benefits of these approaches. Costs were incorporated directly into the scenarios and InVEST. This included the costs of implementation of adaptation options combined with any associated costs to ecosystem services quantified by our models, and benefits represented by the positive return in ecosystem service values quantified by our models. Local experts helped in reviewing the selected ecosystem services and adaptation options. A technical report was developed on the activities.