Additional manpower was provided by students from two institutions - the Seychelles Maritime and Seychelles Tourism Academies - on work-based attachments. A total of 10 students came to the island. They were extremely useful, taking the place of paying volunteers from the Conservation Boot Camp, which also collapsed in the wake of Covid-19 restrictions for travel. One of the students was eventually employed. Another budding partnership was formed with the Seychelles Coast Guard to whom the staff reported illegal fishing boats. And finally, once the government allowed for a resumption of ecotourism, partnering tour operators began to bring visitors back to Cousin Island.

Staff retention was made possible through the availability of the Rapid Response Grant to fund salaries. Cousin Island has been self-sustaining for many years before the pandemic. The donor funding helped to rectify the shortfall in financing experienced by the reserve due to the collapse of the tourism industry in Seychelles

In the case of Sehlabathebe National Park, the analysis of the data and the priority actions for improvement  identified during the processes are feeding directly into the management plan for the area. This gives the outputs from the assessment more legitimacy, as they are 1) jointly identified by all relevant stakehodlers and 2) embedded in the formal government processes of managemen planning. The management plan can be used as a tool for resource mobilisation amongst donors and priority actions can then also be monitored through the monitoring of the management plan implementation.

The effective management of the Reserve depended on the willingness of core staff - 8 wardens and 1 science officer - to remain on the nature reserve despite the countrywide lockdown and restrictions. This staff chose to stay on the island to carry out MPA activities instead of being at home with their families. For context, Cousin Island is relatively remote. Staff live on the island without partners or families, and have the opportunity to get off the island over the weekend. However, during the Covid-19 lockdowns, their limited movement was further curtailed by restrictions.

The purpose was to  enhance knowledge on the assessment tools and to collect data for informed decisions. For the Intergrated Management Effectiveness Tool (IMET), this involves collecting comprehensive data on the ecological and management attributes of the park and for the Site Assessment on Governance and Equity (SAGE), it involves collecting data on the views and needs of all the stakeholders to facilitate a joint understanding of the governance and the key issues faced in governance of the site. This data is then collectively analysed and provides transparency for all stakeholders present as they have contributed to the data and the analysis. 

When drawing up the study protocol, it is essential to make the most of local experience. Working in partnership with former holothurian fishermen facilitated site selection. Fishermen's testimonies were used to help organize the dives and determine the risks, so as to better anticipate them.

Data collection is digitised using technological applications often selected to meet the needs of a particular project. In wildlife monitoring and protection, SMART for Conservation was identified as a suitable software for it provides a quick form to record incidents while tracking the distance covered by each team. Further, data collected in this manner needs to be used alongside other datasets for well informed decision making. To achieve this, an integration with Earthranger (an online visualization platform) was instituted to allow visual analysis of incidents and patrol coverage against other components such as tagged animals, live streaming images from security cameras, points of interest and environmental hazard reports.

The purpose of this building block is to ensure that the broader communities are involved in the conservation efforts through activities that they are passionate about i.e youth through sports, school children through reading programmes. This helps to improve the connectedness that the local people have with the rhinos and they value the rhino more. 

IMET and SAPA assessments are community-based, participatory processes that require the involvement of local communities to ensure the quality of the assessment. To this end, prior to the start of the evaluation workshops and meetings, we worked with the site managers to identify all the stakeholders likely to hold information essential to the evaluation. All these stakeholders were informed from the outset of the planned action, of the various evaluation phases, the objectives pursued and expected results, and finally of the future use to be made of the results obtained. This information and involvement stage ensured that the local communities were fully on board and participated effectively in all stages of the evaluation.

Before responding to the call for projects, it is very important to draw up a list of the equipment available within the structure, and to check that it is in good working order. Then, a list of additional equipment needed to carry out the various activities must be discussed with the relevant people in the project. It is important to check whether the new equipment is available locally or externally, and in the latter case to take into account delivery times (sometimes several weeks or months) and additional costs. Next, it's very important to plan field activities according to weather conditions, and above all to adapt schedules very quickly.