The purpose is to achieve a successful transboundary management plan integrating the levels needed for effective management. An exercise to imagine what would make the SIMP a success was useful to manage expectations, and guide and adapt the process.

1. Preparatory phase: the trilateral Task Group World Heritage, overseeing the SIMP development, agreed on the purpose to improve management coordination at the trilateral level. Considering the suggestions from site management and policy levels and the Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, a roadmap and content were agreed upon.
2. The content development in the TWSC: draws upon the existing governance of the cooperation. The working groups supported the drafting of the SIMP’s content in regard to climate change effects and adaptation, education, sustainable tourism, research, monitoring, assessment, etc. Preliminary content was iteratively reviewed and enriched by the TWSC groups, the site managers, the trilateral Task Group World Heritage, and the Wadden Sea Board.
3. Consultation beyond the TWSC: external stakeholders, and members of advisory boards in each of the German Federal States, Denmark, and the Netherlands, reviewed and commented on the draft SIMP.

A similar process is foreseen for assessing the progress and adapting activities.

Bosque La Tigra developed an attractive tourist product for international and national visitors, communities, and students that aspire to connect with nature and learn from local biodiversity. This tourist product will stand out as an offer that was created with a high sense of environmental responsibility and serves as an example, inspiration, showcase, and replicable model for international and national organizations.

Bosque La Tigra offers guided tours, an interactive walking trail where visitors can learn about the rainforest, local biodiversity, and wildlife. Visitors can enjoy 4 km of trails across primary and secondary forests. The trails are interpreted with signs of the most representative tree species of the forests, with information such as scientific name, common name, and the natural history or a brief description of the species. Visitors can also visit the tree nursery and pick a native tree to plant at the reserve. The reserve also carries out wildlife monitoring activities, installing camera traps that register videos and photographs of the fauna that live at the reserve. Visitors can also see the installation of the cameras and observe videos and photos of local fauna.

Bosque La Tigra built a biological station in the reserve that serves as a rainforest school, a place for learning and discovering the forest. Students, tourists families, and visitors can have a first-hand experience at Bosque La Tigra and enjoy the outdoor activities in the reserve.

Families can visit Bosque La Tigra and enjoy a unique experience embedded in the tropical forest. Bosque La Tigra is also a welcoming space for schools and high schools of La Tigra and surroundings, where students can learn about the tropical rainforest, its dynamics, and local biodiversity. The biological station of Bosque La Tigra has classrooms to give lessons for the local communities that are undergoing training in tourist guidance, entrepreneurship, among other topics.

Bosque La Tigra has focused on creating alliances with universities, schools, and learning institutes to cooperate and implement environmental education programs and other training at the biological station. The Project also offers overnight accommodation for students groups to develop outdoor courses and training.

Bosque La Tigra owns 46 hectares of primary and secondary forests, as well as regeneration areas, as relicts of what used to be passion fruit plantations. Bosque La Tigra adjoins the Children Eternal Rainforest, Costa Rica’s biggest private reserve, with 23.000 hectares. For the Project, this location is a strategic element of the reserve work.

Bosque La Tigra has intended to foster the ecological connectivity of both reserves by conserving the forest and also, by actively restoring the regeneration areas of the reserve with native trees. For this purpose, the project designed a reforestation sequence for the regeneration areas. Eventually, the area will enter into an ecological succession process and foster ecological connectivity with the Children Eternal Rainforest.

At least 40 different species of native trees and bushes have been identified to plant in the regeneration areas. The Project has established a tree nursery that reproduces trees and seedlings from the same primary and secondary forests of the reserve and has a capacity for 700 seedlings and plants.

Between 2017 and 2020, a total of 4500 trees were planted. Every reforestation effort is supported by the voluntary work of students, companies’ employees, national and international tourists, and Bosque La Tigra staff.

AI-based crack gauge for rockfall is a device that monitors the occurrence of rockfall and the crack displacements in real-time by installing an observation sensor in a rockfall risky area located along the trail. Since 2013, automatic and manual crack gauges have been installed on steep slopes with a high risk of collapse, and 525 units are currently in operation at 174 locations. The rockfall measuring device is divided into risk levels of 'interest, caution, alert, and serious'. In the interest stage, regular and frequent inspections are carried out. In the caution stage where cracks are less than 5 mm and less than 2°, monitoring is strengthened. In the alert stages, precise investigation and action plans for the disaster are prepared. In the serious stage, the adjacent trails are controlled and emergency measures such as rockfall removal are implemented.

AI-based Intelligent CCTV is a scientific safety management system that uses deep learning technology to control emergencies in real-time image analysis. By recognizing and analyzing abnormal behavior patterns, such as intrusion, screaming, wandering, etc., a warning broadcast is immediately sent to the site and delivered to the control system, following the emergency responses.
In addition, in the case of marine/coastal national parks with a high risk of safety accidents due to tides and tides, the broadcast of tide times is automatically issued to the site. Intelligent CCTV was installed in 2020 and is currently being operated in 89 places in 15 national parks.

To enable automatic and instant biodiversity impact assessment enquiry, the BiA tool has been developed to facilitate enquiry services for land planners and other interested parties via Azure platform. The BiA tool works by overlaying the enquiry site or region (or existing construction projects) with multiple geographic layers including species distribution and protected area range to investigate if the site or region is within certain distance (e.g., 3 km, 5 km) from and may cause impact on endangered species habitat and/or protected areas. The assessment reports illustrate ecological and environmental risks of construction projects for decision-makers and could hopefully promotes them to take biodiversity into consideration.

A brief timeline of the BiA tool:

• Apr-Jun 2020: team formation, requirement communication, system development plan
• Jul-Sept 2020: tool development
• Oct 2020: trial test, application and dissemination
• (in preparation) Apr-Sept 2022: system upgrade

During nature watch campaigns, citizen scientists are invited to observe and record wildlife timely, which not only strengthens the connection between citizens and nature but also serves as a promising species distribution data source. Species record data collected by citizen scientists via online questionnaire automatically flows into the visualization platform database (after data cleaning and manually periodically check) and turns into intuitive and attractive visualized charts and maps (two types: spatial, spatial and temporal) via Power BI. The platform, with both web and mobile version, provides real-time feedback to citizen scientists’ nature watch efforts, boosting their sense of accomplishment and motivating their future participation in nature watch activities. Moreover, since the platform integrates multiple nature watch campaigns with links to web articles about specific analysis of each campaign, it offers a broad range of biodiversity knowledge and enables “virtual nature watch” for citizens to get to know wildlife in other regions.

A brief timeline of the platform:

• Jan-Feb 2021: form team, analyze analysis, make blueprint
• Mar-Jun 2021: develop database and platform
• Jul-Aug 2021: trial test
• Sept 2021: go live and promotion

To accelerate camera trap data workflows, an online data management system along with app-based tools and AI image recognition is being developed supported by technical partners, which consists of:

• Community-based camera trap monitoring assistant app: the app allows local monitors to automatically record the time and GPS location of camera trap setup/pickup, saving the cumbersome process of collecting data from local monitors and manual data entry. (blueprint: Jun 2019, development: Oct 2019-Feb 2020, trial and use: Mar-Oct 2020)
• AI image recognition models: AI models help detect animals and identify species in camera trap photos, which greatly reduce the number of photos that need human identification and enhance data processing efficiency.
  • A series of AI models has been trained and/or tested with technical partners, including PU & PKU ResNet18 model (2018), MegaDetector (test only, 2020), MindSpore YOLOv3 model (2021).
• Online data management platform: camera trap information collected via the app along with photos are upload to a structured cloud database. The data management platform not only supports species identification via AI and human, but also enables global data search and statistics reports. (blueprint: Apr-Aug 2021, development: Sept 2021-Jun 2022, trial and use: Jul 2022)

Training of staff is important to ensure the effective implementation and long-term success of the solution. Prioritise training during the designing and deployment phase, as well as after the deployment to ensure continued use of the solution.