Creating working relations involving all sectors of society (private, government organizations and civil society organizations) helps to strengthen and authenticate the efforts made under the Program. This also encourages dialog that facilitates the opportunity to lead or resolve conflicts that arise from the production activity, within a framework of respect and tolerance, recognizing that in a territory there are different visions and interests, and all must be fairly considered. Alliances promote synergies that enhance individual efforts and active participation of all sectors of society. They enable the creation of an idea of territory, of collaborative planning, promoting more equitable power relations and the generation of a common vision between actors that were traditionally disconnected or even antagonistic to one another, although they shared the same limitations and potentialities. Within the framework of the Program, alliances put emphasis on the socio-environmental aspects of the territory, which are often disregarded from a perspective exclusively focused on production.

Communication enables an understanding of the objectives and the actions that have been taken to achieve adoption of the principles that sustain the program, by all the members of the organization and the local community. It is a way to highlight the effort made and the policies implemented in order to ensure the sustainability of the productive processes. Communication within the organization allows dissemination of the vision, values and actions put in place to improve environmental performance, the commitment to the community and the quality of the products offered External communication specifically allows dissemination of the organization's efforts to improve its productive and environmental performance to the local community, buyers, suppliers and any other social actor relevant to their interests. 

Monitoring is the sustained study of certain environmental indicators (flora, fauna, water resources, etc.) in order to establish a baseline that facilitates tracking the behavior of the environment in relation to the production systems. This information allows for implementing improvement measures in aspects related to land management while strengthening positive actions and mitigating, through corrective actions, components that may be unfavorable in the production-natural environment relationship.

This strand suggests focusing on internal production and operation processes, to identify phases or critical stages from an environmental point of view, that would enable the incorporation of improvements in the socio-environmental performance, always within a framework of continuous improvement. It involves aspects of production processes such as waste management, effluents and emissions, management of natural resources (soil, water), rational management of agrochemicals, infrastructure design, etc. An important aspect -that the program tries to promote- is the inclusion of certifications (local, national or international). These are valid tools that allow organizations/companies/cooperatives not only to achieve better environmental standards but also to incorporate additional value to their products while maintaining or adding markets for them. 

This strand, the first to be developed, proposes to prepare a planning work that takes into account both production needs (current and future) and the context in which they are carried out. It requires visualization, through field and cabinet work (development of a GIS), of the characteristics of the landscape where the production is developed :environmental units, water basins, sectors under production, actual or planned infrastructure, critical or interesting habitats for nature conservation, topography, environmental and social environment of the property, local demographic pressures, connection of the territory with the categories of the Land-use Planning of Native Forests of the Province (OTBN for Argentina), other land-use regulations, etc.

BFD has started using SMART as an adaptive management tool in the Sundarbans which is among the key potential benefits of the approach.

Presentation of reports to SMART enforcement committee helped the decision makers of BFD to plan patrols based on data queries and interpretations from actual SMART reports. This with on-board mentoring observations helped BFD decision makers to take further management decisions.

BFD is using SMART patrol reports and assess how patrol plans have been adapted based on the results of previous patrols and how effective these adaptations have been in increasing the effectiveness of SMART patrols as evidenced by the area covered, number of arrests and successful prosecutions of criminals committing serious wildlife, fisheries and forest crimes such as poaching and poison fishing; confiscations of boats, weapons, snares and traps, and wildlife carcasses and body parts; and trends (increasing, stable or decreasing) in sighting rates of key threatened wildlife species.

8 teams formed for SMART patrolling in 4 Forest Ranges of the Sundarbans. A mother vessel, one fiber-body trawler (for patrols in the canals and creeks) and a speed-boat to go to the areas where trawler couldn’t access due to narrow width of canal/creek and less water depth as well as to chase offenders. Under the leadership of a Team Leader, each team stays in the field for 10-14 days and patrols crime hotspots, records sightings of key wildlife species, illicit activities, checks permits and necessary documents, gadgets/gears of fishers, arrest offenders, handover offenders to nearby Forest Offices, records all data in the data model configured in the handheld device (i.e. CyberTracker).

After completion of the trip, Team hands over their handheld device to ‘Data Manager’ for data quality checking and unload data in the data storage platform. Team Leader also make a briefing note for the next patrol team highlighting their coverage areas, potential crime hotspots and dierction for next patrol team. Cleaned data then comes to ‘Data Coordinator’ who then compile data from all 4 Ranges, analyze and generate reports with` findings in different graphs, shows trends, hotspots, information on offenders and arrested ones, etc. and present to SMART enforcement committee to help further decision making and adaptive management.