The collection of fisheries data is one of the commitments acquired when there is a right of access to the resource, as well as when working under a sustainable fisheries scheme. In order to demonstrate that the fishery is developing its activities under this scheme, data and information are obtained by implementing a fishery monitoring system.

The clam and tripe fishery had been characterized by a sustainable fishery, however, there was no data systematically captured to document the activities carried out in the long term. To address this need, COBI and community partners jointly implemented a fishery monitoring program. With the fishermen and fisherwomen, a logbook was designed with data such as date, time, boat, diver, target species, fishing site, number of organisms, size of organisms collected, income and expenditure. All the members of the cooperatives and fishing technicians were trained to fill out the fishing logs and one person per fishing cooperative was responsible for recording the data.

A harvest strategy is a set of formally or traditionally agreed tools used to ensure good resource utilization. In clam and tripe fisheries, harvest strategies are defined based on the best available information. However, sometimes the strategies and rules are not applicable with the same recipe throughout the country due to variations in the biological, environmental and social conditions of each region. This lack of information at the local level poses a challenge to define strategies according to the local characteristics of the fishery and to evaluate its performance. To address this need, we have worked together with all the stakeholders involved (fishing communities, government, academia and civil society organizations), generating information through fishing logs to ensure that fishing is carried out in accordance with the strategies implemented. By incorporating the knowledge of the communities to the information recorded, it is possible to generate new participatory strategies, better adapted to local conditions.

Integrated management zones (IMZ) are an innovative approach for the management and recovery of bivalves, applied in the clam and callus fisheries in Mexico. To implement this tool, the following was done: 1) the work area was defined and delimited; 2) areas with suitable characteristics for bivalve culture were identified with the communities; 3) biological (measurements and weight of the organisms) and ecological (abundance, diversity, richness and distribution of the species) information was generated for the proposed area, and it was submitted to a vote among the users for its establishment as IMZ; and, 5) systematic monitoring was implemented to identify long-term changes.

This story began with a cooperative that wanted to recover the populations of callo de hacha. It was later replicated by a cooperative of young commercial divers and later by a group of women who consolidated as a cooperative to recover the estuarine clam population. The results have been positive; e.g., the population of callo went from 0 to 13,000 individuals in five years in an area of 25 hectares, collecting seeds from the natural environment.

The nature of Herculaneum’s burial 2000 years ago meant that open-air excavation in the early 20th c. revealed an extraordinary level of preservation of the Roman town but had to be accompanied by the stabilization of these multistorey ruins, and the reinstatement of roads and drainage systems. The site today requires conservation of the archaeological fabric but also of these aging restoration interventions, and at an urban scale.

However, efforts at Herculaneum in the late 20th c. approached the site as a series of individual elements. This was partly due to limited access to interdisciplinary expertise and steady funding sources – sporadic capital funding for one-off localised projects predominated.

With the turn of the millennium, a new approach was taken that mapped conservation issues and interdependencies between them across the entire site, and acted on them. Initial efforts focused on resolving situations in areas at risk of collapse or with vulnerable decorative features. Over time the focus shifted to long-term strategies for reducing the causes of decay and developing site-wide maintenance cycles sustainable by the public authority alone so that the site would not revert back. With these now entirely sustained by the public partner the overarching objective has been achieved.

A Local Stewardship Council (LSC) is the main representative of a World Surfing Reserve and is in charge of implementing the Local Stewardship Plan. The LSC works together with Save The Waves Coalition to Protect, Steward, and Defend their surf ecosystem.

LSC members work on the ground and with the local community to carry out activities that result in the long-term conservation of the reserve as well as celebrate and honor the tradition of surfing and ocean recreation.  The Stewardship Planning Process brings together the LSC and important community members to map out the the critical threats to the region and come up with long term goals and objectives for permanent protection.  

The Stewardship Planning Process generally follows the outline in "Measures of Success" that includes building a Conceptual Model, developing a management plan that identifies goals, objectives, actions and timelines based on the threats to address.

“Surfonomics” aims to document surfing’s economic contributions to local and regional economies. Through Surfonomics research, we determine the economic value of a wave and surfing to local communities to help decision makers make better choices to protect their coastal resources and waves.

Using a beach survey of surfers in San Miguel, Ensenada, we were able to quantify that an average tourist spends approximately $111 US dollars a day. As the average surfer spends 10 days per year in the area, it is calculated that a visiting surfer spends $1,151 US dollars a year in Ensenada. 

These figures show that surfing helps drive the local economy of Ensenada and that decision-makers must take into account the importance of the surf zone in terms of coastal management.

Investment in a radar tracking system for broader monitoring of the area. The radar tracking system is real-time monitoring speed, and directional heading of the boat in the marine protected area's vicinity. The radar information can infer the type of activity of the boat is likely to be engaged in the sea. For example, a fish trawler boat that is trawling tends to move at a slower speed of 7-10 kph than a passing trawler that usually travels at a speed of 16 – 20 kph. Furthermore, five blast detectors were installed to monitor and analyse blast fishing activities within SIMCA. The blast detector's information enables the Reef Guardian enforcement team to do strategic sea patrol to increase enforcement presence in the hot spot where illegal fish bombing often occurred.

One of the most immediate challenges facing fish fisheries on their path to fishery sustainability is the implementation of fishery monitoring. This gathers all the information needed to understand how the fishery functions, including its economic and ecological components, allowing better management decisions to be made. To achieve this in the fish fishery, fishermen and fisherwomen were trained on the importance of monitoring their fisheries and how to carry it out. Together with the fishing communities, the government sector, academia and civil society organizations, a fishing logbook format was designed and approved by the government.

Subsequently, the logbooks were implemented in four fishing communities, adapting the process according to local needs. 2021 marked four years since the communities began monitoring their fisheries (specifically for different species of fish), which has allowed them to make inferences on the behavior of the fishery, plan their activities, monitor their income, 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 visioning for the future of the Denali region is to evaluate stakeholder preferences and trade-offs they are willing to make when thinking about the future of the region. Identifying distinct visions for the future is important in places like Interior Alaska where impacts from climate change are magnified and anticipated to rapidly transform the social-ecological landscape. This information can inform decision-makers about priorities for the future across a gamut of stakeholders and serve as a foundation for participatory planning. This study evaluated visions as part of a mixed mode household survey administered to residents across the Denali region.

To identify preferences and trade-offs for future conditions, a discrete choice experiment that evaluated the strengths of preferences and trade-offs for future conditions of the Denali region was included. Survey data were used to understand preferences for attributes including wildlife populations, off-season tourism, and fire management, as well as the cost of maintaining current conditions of these attributes. Results showed that all of these factors influenced preferences for the future, and that the range of environmental attitudes held by stakeholder groups accounted for variation in the strength of preferences reported by survey respondents.