Enforcement involves more than just one organization. The entire process in development and implementation of an enforcement strategy must be participatory. Ultimately, stakeholders must be involved as they can have a positive or negative effect on outcomes. In this case local government agencies are crucial to be involved (i.e coast guard, police, military, government agencies). Equally important are community members of influence who can become stewards educating on legislation and the protected area rules ultimately to help reduce poaching. Additionally, the value of strong community support is the fact that they can become “eyes on the ground”.

In order to develop your enforcement strategy there are key pieces of information that must be collated and understood. These include lay of the land (why is the protected area important, what are the natural assets that need protection), legal framework (what laws apply, what agencies are involved in protected area enforcement/management), and finally what do you want to focus on: enforcement goals. 

One of the main objectives of the project was to transfer the seed bombing method developed by XGraines, and adapting it to the material, human and knowledge resources available within tribal communities. This action required the implementation of several training workshops, following a preliminary phase of identification of all locally mobilizable resources. The experiments were carried out directly with the participants, who were able to contribute to the implementation of the method in a co-constructed process that could guarantee the proper appropriation of this technique. A main local referent was trained throughout the process and will be able to pass on this acquired knowledge in the future within the community.

One of the prerequisites for action was to work with the project referents in the tribe to conduct an inventory of potential sites for seed planting trials, as well as to identify and select certain target plant species necessary for the process. This step involved mobilizing specific expertise in ecology and botany, also traditional knowledge, as well as putting in place a validation process by the different levels of local authorities involved.

Enhancing governance and conservation in biodiversity protected area management requires robust stakeholder participation and collaboration by all the actors in the protected areas. This was key as the shared resources made it possible to accomplish the project implementation within the schedule and timeframe.  This process also involved stakeholder analysis and their contribution to the governance of the site. Shared vision planning and established mechanism for continued coordination.

A brief site-level profile (baseline) was developed to assist in understanding the governance gaps and issues in the targeted protected areas. In this case, a SAGE too was identified to assist with a quick assessment of governance issues.  This process also helped to identify key stakeholders relevant to the implementation of the project at the site level.

Blue Parks relies heavily on collaborations with other conservation NGOs, communications and marketing professionals, government leaders, MPA managers, scientists, and local ocean champions. Growing the network of Blue Parks and amplifying the Blue Park standard for conservation effectiveness requires many partners.

A ‘local community’ represents a heterogeneous group of people, characterized by their ethnic origin, political orientation and shared history, defining (dynamic) power relationships between it`s members.

Each community possesses therefore a ‘social capital’ that can be described as its capacity to respond to an external intervention (e.g. a project).

A blue print approach would therefore not be suitable.

Donors need to change the way they fund project and project implementers should not accept anymore 3-years projects that address complex systems.

Complex systems need time and resources to have a chance to be successful (an inception phase of 6 months is far too short to understand a new network of stakeholders).

In multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs), stakeholders from the state, the private sector, civil society and  academia plan, coordinate and implement joint activities to tackle the challenges of sustainable development. They use an agreed steering structure that enables them to function strategically and operationally. Smoothly functioning decision-making mechanisms are, among other things, crucial to cooperate across  organisation. Yet, depending on the complexity of the issues involved, decision-making can be a challenging process. The AOHSM is based on the principle of collegial leadership, i.e. non-hierarchical and self-organised cooperation, proceeding on the basis of solution focussed action. The exchange amongst the AOHSM working groups is facilitated by rotating moderators. Currently, a governance structure for the AOHSM is being developed taking into consideration the opinions, ideas and experiences of key members of all working groups.