• Development of a participatory forest management plan should be a transparent and an all-inclusive activity.
• The process is time consuming particularly when you have to consider divergent views.
• Planning is a dynamic process; it is therefore easier to build a consensus as soon as possible and provide room for future changes.
• Community buy-in of the management planning process is critical for its full implementation.
• Resources need to be allocated to the development of the forest management plan, as it can be quite an expensive process. The cost of developing a PFMP for Gazi Bay was estimated at US$ 30,000; much of which went to community negotiations and capacity building.

• Surveillance and enforcement in protected areas are the responsibility of the governmental agency. Still we have discovered that interinstitutional cooperation favours higher presence and enforcement in the area. Joining forces with the Marine Secretariat increased operation capacities to operate as well as the safety of involved personell.
• Nonetheless, leadership by a responsible stakeholder is required (in our case CONANP).
• The establishment of a platform systemizing field data collated, allows to generate valuable information, which supports the evaluation and adaption of the work programs.

• Short- or medium-term private resources have been fundamental to construct, systemize and prove that the approach is practicable.
• A long-term success depends on governmental investment or on the existence of specific funding through heritage assets. Both are also useful for the supply of equipment and necessary infrastructure.

• The authorities responsible for surveillance and enforcement are interested in detailed information about the protected areas, so the trainings are always well attended. #
• Evaluation on the knowledge before and after the training workshops allows the identification of knowledge gaps and documentation of progress. It is important to have regular evaluations in order to ensure participants understand and remember key information.
• It is helpful to use personal accounts and explanations in addition to technical documents.
• Integrating an exercise or using video material ensures active particpation.
• Coastal fishermen are not very familiar with the use of maps, so other means to convey information about management plans must be developed.

• The role of civil society organizations (CSOs) is a topic for discussion in the working groups of some Protected Areas, so it is very important to clearly define their role from the beginning. CSOs can e.g. support as technical advisers, contribute information, support with logistics, follow-up on agreements and facilitate communication between the participants of the different institutions.
• Common indicators that all members of a working group refer to, encourage the will to work together.
• Regular meetings and using virtual communication proofed useful.
• Sometimes it is better to have voluntary commitments of participation instead of having agreements that require legal review by every organization involved.

To maintain economic incentives is very expensive and in the long term not very sustainable. Economic agreements can be a very good strategy to engage a group of people quickly in conservation actions and, as happened in this case, result in the recovery of an overexploited population auch as the spiny lobster. For the success of the agreement it is essential to establish a monitoring system, conduct trainings and support the stakeholders involved in order to ensure that once the agreement has ended the fishermen are not falling back to their old behaviour. Currently, the direct sale and the higher prices they receive for the environmentally responsible products are the primary incentive for adapting sustainability and conservation measures. This agreement ran for two years in which a recovery of the population and an increase in size of the spiny lobster at the Cape of San Francisco was determined.

This is an initiative which has been developed over a period of about five years with encountering some difficulties along the way. It was a long process which required patience and persistence before seeing differences in fishing behaviour. The biggest challenge was in working with a group of people who did not see the benefit for being organized in a union and who are used to certain extraction techniques having a free access to the resources without any kind of regulation. This initiative shows how projects working on behavioural changes and the raising awareness for more environmentally friendly uses, can take several years and need to consider the different rhythm and philosophy of the stakeholders involved and ensure their responsibility and commitment in decision-making in this process.

It is important to have technical support for a long-term monitoring process to establish a continuous monitoring system. This means, not only including and analysing new Information on fisheries but also communicating information and results back to the commnunities to suppport the empowerment and ownership of the fishermen in this process. It is important that the actual resource users are involved in the process and understand their contributions to the fishing monitoring results.

• Learn from experiences of similar institutions to establish the appropriate monitoring and evaluation system parameters

• It is crucial for the strategic plan to be an inclusive document with ample participation from all stakeholders