These three decision-making tools were crucial to address power dynamics and promote stakeholders' participation and engagement in collective action in the National Park:

• An analytical tool to characterize types of governance arrangements in the protected area. Formal and informal governance arrangements were classified in terms of stakeholders’ responsibility (shared vs. concentrated) and influence (equal vs. unequal) into four types: prescriptive, informative, consultative, and cooperative. By applying this tool in the National Park we identified challenges for more socially inclusive conservation while enhancing existing participatory mechanisms and delineating new ones;
• Theatre-based facilitation techniques to address power dynamics between stakeholders. By using them in a virtual workshop, participants deliberated on their roles and power relations around conservation governance and how these may be reconciled to improve collaboration;
• A context-specific boundary object to facilitate collective action for conservation governance. Using this graphical tool in a workshop, participants assessed their level of willingness to put several strategies into practice. The tool visualized the results graphically as a proxy of the potential willingness to move from theory to practice.

These three tools help to identify visions and elaborate future scenarios, in a participatory way, for protected areas management:

• Participatory mapping (PGIS), a tool to visualize information in a particular geographical context focusing on a certain issue of interest. This tool was used in surveys to elicit the residents’ visions based on perceptions of landscape values and local knowledge;
• Streamline, an open-source narrative synthesis tool that integrates graphics in the form of canvases and tiles, facilitating interviews and discussion groups in a creative and stimulating way. Streamline was used with stakeholders’ expressing their values and preferences for management actions, and sharing their knowledge of changes in the landscape;
• Participatory scenario planning exercise, a deliberative process that was facilitated about plausible and desired futures through a two-day online workshop (due to the Covid-19 pandemic) with stakeholders. Based on the current socio-ecological conditions and the factors driving change, participants weighed up what could happen in the coming 20 years, discussed implications for biodiversity conservation and the quality of life of those who currently enjoy the ecosystem services it provides, whilst identifying the strategies to address them.

To facilitate place-based processes that foster inclusive conservation it is necessary to collect local/traditional knowledge, views, and values from multiple stakeholders. Some methods to gather such information were used in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park:

• Oral histories and historical datasets review to reconstruct how past visions and drivers of environmental impact have changed over the last 50 years and inform current and future conservation goals;
• Interviews with local stakeholders on 1) how participation works in the protected area and potential barriers/opportunities for more social engagement, and 2) their visions for park management, the values and knowledge that underpin the visions, and their perceptions of landscape changes and the underlying drivers;
• Face-to-face surveys with residents, including participatory mapping tools (i.e. Maptionnaire) about landscape values and ecological knowledge. Online surveys with local stakeholders to identify changes in their visions, values and perceptions of the landscape after the COVID-19 pandemic; and
• Deliberative processes embedded in a participatory scenario planning exercise that used cognitive and emotional maps to collect collective knowledge of the protected area while capturing intertwined affective relationships.

The systematic monitoring of planted trees that is conducted by HAF and the gathering and registering of data of trees planted, including GPS locations, height, diameter, survival rates, and social benefits. The integrated tree monitoring system, called AKVO, was developed by Ecosia, a German organization which plants trees using revenue generated from their search engine. Trained in the use of this application, the monitoring team disperses throughout the regions, visiting the farmers and monitoring the trees that were planted during the previous planting season. Stored in a shared database, the information collected by the team in collaboration with local nursery caretakers will enhance informed decision-making at all levels of governance and across sectors by filling gaps in knowledge and precedence regarding practical application of resource management. 

HAF has had critical successes in engaging women in the management, monitoring, and institutionalizing processes of sustainable agriculture, overcoming gender barriers as a result. These strategies are vital in order for actual socioeconomic and environmental improvements to take hold. Empowerment outcomes with women’s groups in different regions of Morocco have been enabled by the Imagine workshop, which takes place over four days and 32 hours. These workshops help build the personalized vision of the women participants, provide the setting and coaching in order to analyze social relationships, including familial relationships that may promote and/or need strengthening in order to gain the support needed to achieve greater levels of self-determination and economic benefits. Imagine workshops, however, are not solely for women - men have and will continue to be encouraged to participate in empowerment workshops such as Imagine to support a holistic community empowerment process. As a result of these workshops, beneficiaries often join together to create cooperatives and self-employment initiatives. For example, 178 women now earn income from 13 new cooperatives which operate fruit tree and medicinal plant nurseries, engage in food processing, keep bees, and more.