Norway does not fully include specific World Heritage provisions in its national legislation, but all WH sites are protected under the existing legal framework. However, a key challenge is to ensure that the management plan for World Heritage is recognized and implemented in all public management and urban development plans affecting or touching upon a WH site.

Following the approval by the WH Board, the Management Plan of Bryggen was approved by the Municipality of Bergen and Vestland County Council. This recognition states that the Management plan should be implemented by all public municipal and county authorities in their actions of maintenance of public infrastructure, new urban developments, use of public spaces, and in management or planning of cultural events. This recognition strengthens cultural heritage management in the municipality and the county and their commitment to uphold a strong focus on the protection of the WH property of Bryggen.

Bryggen WH site only covers a small geographical area within the city centre of Bergen. There are several large ongoing urban planning projects just outside the WH property. The political recognition of the management plan has become a tool for urban planning beyond the WH property.

The Management Plan is key for the successful management of Bryggen as a WH site. It provides a good understanding of the OUV and other heritage values and it identifies the attributes and provides an overview of potential challenges for the protection of the site.

With the establishment of the new WH management structure, the revision of the management plan by the Advisory Board started in 2018. The WH Coordinator with 4 members of the Advisory Board worked closely in the development of the revised management plan.

Whenever needed, additional contributions from different officers and specialists were included, however the focus was put on keeping the process internal to ensure ownership of the plan by all concerned actors, ensuring that they will contribute to its implementation once adopted. The management plan was adopted by the WH Board in 2020 and the action plan was approved in 2021.

In 2012 Norway adopted a new national World Heritage policy to push for a more  effective implementation of the World Heritage Convention at a national, regional and local level. This includes recommendations for the establishment of local management structures able to enhance local capacities for management.
In 2018, a new structure was approved by all stakeholders and recognized at all levels. It  consists of:

• a WH Board responsible for the  protection of Bryggen in accordance with WH requirements  and the management plan. It consists of 4 political members (2 from Vestland County Council,2 from the Municipality of Bergen) appointed for 4 years.
• an Advisory Board strengthens cooperation between stakeholders in Bryggen with the aim of protecting its OUV and other heritage values. It consists of 10 members representing building owners, museums, university, tourism operators, cultural heritage agencies at local, regional and national level, and friends’ association.
• a full time World Heritage Coordinator funded by the national government and employed at the Agency of Cultural Heritage Management, City of Bergen. It is the contact person for the WH site and responsible for stakeholder involvement and site management. 

To improve the organizational, productive, commercial and business conditions of POT and RAYEN, and thus be attractive to young people, in addition to the two projects implemented in Soconusco, Rainforest Alliance Mexico established alliances with local institutions, organizations and working groups, which formalized with collaboration agreements, annual work plans and under the modality of providing specialized services. The producer organizations POT and RAYEN have been strengthened through these alliances, making their work more attractive to young people. Since that year, CONANP has supported POTs with annual subsidy programs to improve sustainable production processes; CESAVE has implemented annual management plans to combat moniliasis and black spot, cocoa diseases that reduce production. With the strengthening of POT and RAYEN, young people showed interest in the coffee and cacao production chains, and in 2021 Rainforest Alliance Mexico began the process of training local managers. This was supported by POT and RAYEN, and together with CONANP and CESAVE promoted the participation of young people in the one-year training process, which INIFAP developed as the consulting agency responsible for the training.

Since 2018, the Rainforest Alliance Mexico has been implementing the following projects in the Soconusco region of the state of Chiapas. Sustainable Agriculture of Coffee and Cocoa, funded by Hivos (2018-2020) and Fundación Gigante (2018-2024) and APSyM, funded by USAID (2018-2023), with which organizational processes were improved (including leadership), production, harvest/post-harvest, commercial and business (improvement of marketing prices), communication and positioning at the local, regional and national level of the producer organizations RAYEN and POT, which together involve more than 170 people who produce coffee and cocoa under agroforestry systems. All of the above has been the basis for making the organizations more attractive for young people to join the production chains and seek opportunities for training, sharing experiences and generating self-employment opportunities for themselves. To support the interest of young people, the Rainforest Alliance Mexico designed work plans that included complementary activities between projects, which ensured the follow-up of both the strengthening of the organizations and the processes of education, training and integration of these young people into the organizations.

The organizations Productores de Cacao Sostenible RAYEN and Productores Orgánicos del Tacaná (POT) were created in 2016, since then they are dedicated to the production and commercialization of fine aroma cacao and arabica coffee, respectively. Both are located in the Soconusco Region, in the state of Chiapas. Being constituted was important to promote and support young people in their training process as Local Managers (GL), as they created spaces for participation in which the leaders of both organizations contributed their experience in the training sessions. Since 2018, Rainforest Alliance Mexico, through the Sustainable Cocoa and Coffee Production ( Fundación Gigante and Hivos) and APSyM (USAID) projects, has provided them with support to strengthen their productive, organizational and marketing processes, thereby increasing their presence in the region and their visibility in national and international markets. This awakened the interest of some young people to begin their training process as LGs, who, in addition to committing themselves to their training, followed up on the good agricultural practices promoted by the organizations. In this way, the LGs had this space to provide technical assistance to people linked to RAYEN and POT.

While APOPO is the leading organisation in training scent detection rats, we rely on our partners for a wide range of support. Without them, deploying scent detection rats would not be possible. Such partners range from local partners such as the Sokoine University of Agriculture, to international partners such as Mine Action Authorities, governments, donors, and specialised organisations.

For example, the wildlife detection project partners with the Endangered Wildlife Trust of South Africa. The project has been funded by a wide range of government donors such as

- The German Government (through the GIZ 'Partnership against Wildlife Crime in Africa and Asia' Global Program)

- The UNDP-GEF-USAID 'Reducing Maritime Trafficking of Wildlife between Africa and Asia' Project

- The UK 'Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund'

- The Wildlife Conservation Network

- The Pangolin Crisis Fund

- US Fish and Wildlife

We rely heavily on support from the Tanzanian Wildlife Management Authority (TAWA) for provision of training aids, and, recently, the support from the Dar es Salaam Joint Port Control Unit in order to conduct operational trials for illegal wildlife detection. 

Internal training and accreditation are instrumental to the deployment of HeroRATs, which are conducted at APOPO's training headquarters on the campus of the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Tanzania. Here, African giant pouched rats are bred and trained for scent detection purposes. They are each trained for a specific programme following strict protocols, where they learn to detect and indicate their target scent and complete search strategies required for deployment. Once training is complete and the rats have been internally accredited, they can then be deployed across the world for operations. APOPO works with implementation and supports partners to achieve the best possible outcomes. Additional accreditation from independent sources can occur at this stage, before rats begin operations. 

A lot of is still unknown about elephants’ dietary preferences and deterrence crops. To expand our knowledge and create replicable methodologies, we studied elephants’ preferences towards 18 different types of crops, the majority of which are of high combined economic value (food, essential oil, medicinal and bee fodder value) and suitable for growing in Southern African climates. The cafeteria-style experiments allowed us to evaluate several plants that have never been tested in terms of their palatability to elephants. Our results showed that herbs such as borage and rosemary with medicinal and aromatic properties, respectively, were strongly avoided together with bird’s eye chilli (a well-known elephant deterrent crop). We found that lemon grass and sunflowers, presented as whole fresh plants to the elephants, were edible to the elephants. This is surprising, as both plant types have been described as unpalatable to both Asian and African elephants alike.

According to our overall scoring system, four food types proved best suited for the proposed corridor region (Bird’s Eye Chilli, Cape Gold, Cape Snowbush and Rosemary). Of these, only Bird’s Eye Chilli had been tested before. The other three plant types have been used in producing essential oil and hold great promise for income-generation.

In May 2023, the Elephants Alive (EA) team embarked on an Human-Elephant Conflict barrier implementation mission to the Namaacha Valley in Southern Mozambique. EA and Mozambique Wildlife Allience (MWA), as well as delegates from Save The Elephants (Kenya) and PAMS Foundation (Tanzania), came together in an inspirational cooperation exercise to implement a 4-way mitigation soft barrier to protect three crop fields. The fields had been identified through field research and GPS tracking data, as high-risk for elephant crop-raiding. One side of the fence was built by hanging beehives. As the hives start to become occupied with wild swarms, we will keep training local farmers on how to keep hives and colonies healthy, by assessing the frame structures and checking if the bees have enough pollen to produce honey. This knowledge will allow the farmers to increase both their crop production, protect crops from hungry elephants and supplement their income from honey sales. The second side of the fence was made up of metal strip fencing, the noise and sight of which has been proven to deter elephants from breaking into farmers’ fields. We set up the third side of the fence with chilli rags. The fourth side of the soft barrier fence was comprised of flashing lights, a technique successfully used in Botswana.