Where commercial lionfish harvesting is not practical or permitted (such as in protected areas), or if the current fishing pressure is not sufficient to suppress lionfish populations below site-specific management targets, a combination of alternative removal methods can be used to reduce lionfish populations, including:

• culling by SCUBA, either by protected area managers or dive operators

• lionfish culling competitions (also known as derbies or tournaments)

• deep-water traps, whilst still at the design stage, have the potential to be used as a tool within a package of lionfish management actions

Multiple stakeholders may need to conduct one or more of these activities at a given site to achieve a desired level of lionfish suppression.

In order to establish a commercial lionfish market, it is important to understand the perceptions of stakeholders (particularly fishers and restaurant owners) and the general public towards catching and eating lionfish. For example, in a survey of the general public undertaken in Belize in 2015, around half of respondents who had not eaten lionfish stated that they would not try a free sample because they believed it to be dangerous. Furthermore, lionfish exploitation was significantly associated with knowledge about the invasion.

Once the barriers and misconceptions around catching/eating lionfish have been identified, they can be resolved by developing a targeted outreach programme with the general public and social marketing campaign targeting restaurants and consumers that informs people about the lionfish invasion in a way that reflects local concerns and values. 

Activities may include:

• cooking demonstrations
• educational presentations
• lionfish tasting events (held in partnership with local restaurants/cooks)
• safe-handling workshops
• interactive, educational booths with lionfish tasters

The creation of the Yaigojé Apaporis Indigenous Reserve and Natural National Park marked the beginning of a new relationship model between indigenous peoples and the Colombian Government. It was necessary to seek mechanisms to ensure the governance and integral conservation of their life systems, without interfering with their rights to their territorial autonomy and to the cultural management that they have traditionally carried out. Once the park was created, the process of formulating its Special Management Regime (REM) was initiated. This regime was the instrument through which the joint administration of the park was shared by the Colombian Natural National Parks (PNNC) and the Yaigojé Apaporis Indigenous Captains Association (ACIYA). Establishing the REM required an internal (or endogenous) research methodology, proposed by the indigenous communities and supported by the experience of the GAIA Amazonas Foundation. This methodology was based on the guidelines issued by an Amazon Indigenous Congress that identified the topics to be collected in each of the communities, in order to guide the design of the REM. This approach helped promote the participation of indigenous communities with three representatives and a shaman.

The Yaigojé Apaporis Indigenous Reserve was created in 1998 through a request of the indigenous Tanimuca, Yucana, Letuama, Matapí, Cabayari, Macuna, Barazano, and Yujup-Macú peoples. In 2008, through a consensus in an extraordinary session of the Traditional Authorities and the Indigenous Captains (ATCI), these communities decided to request the creation of a National Park overlapping the limits of the Reserve. The request was based on the consideration that this would eliminate the development of mining operations and other natural resources exploitation that might endanger biodiversity, their sacred sites and, as a consequence, their customs, social composition, and environmental context.

The creation of the Yaigojé Apaporis Indigenous Reserve and Natural National Park has a long process of working with the GAIA Amazonas Foundation, which had the technical and financial support of the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation. The decision to move to a Special Management Regime (REM) needed the have full local support, ensure the autonomy of the indigenous communities, and strengthen their traditional systems. In addition, it was necessary for them to have negotiation and coordination skills to establish an agreement with the State.

Participative conservation is a principle by which the protection and conservation strategy that is applied in the PNCAZ starts. This is necessary because one of its challenges is to ensure an effective control and surveillance of the protected area with only 45 park rangers covering 1.35 million hectares and a perimeter of nearly 1,000 km.  These conditions demanded a participatory strategy with the incorporation of communal park rangers. This allowed the inclusion of the fronts of defense of the populations, peasant rounds, and even the local authorities themselves, in the control and surveillance strategies, within the framework of the Master Plan of the Park. All of them have acquired a commitment to assist in the conservation and protection of the park, or to define and plan the settlements of the populations to prevent their advance, and land use change.

Managing a protected area of over 1.35 million hectares with a high level of human activity in its buffer zone (2.3 million hectares), required the generation of innovative management tools, focused on social participation. CIMA implements an Intervention Model known as FOCAL, which is currently being incorporated into other protected areas in the country. FOCAL includes tools such as:

• Strengths and Uses Mapping (MUF): It gathers socio-economic information from the communities and population centers, their needs and perceptions about the area and the use of natural resources, to identify local organizations with which alliances need to be created to implement preservation actions.
• Participatory Communal Zoning (ZPC): It guides the development process of ecological-economic zoning at a community level to achieve consensus among the population regarding the sustainable use of the territory and its natural resources.
• Coexistence rules: They enable to reach agreements at the level of the populated center or community, define codes of behavior and provide stability to the planning process and the Quality of Life Plans that are created as a result.

Although the PNCA had financial support during the 2008-2013 period, these sources are not considered sustainable in the long term. For this reason, CIMA searched for mechanisms to improve the Park’s financial sustainability.  One of them was to design the Cordillera Azul REDD+ Project. As part of that project, CIMA and The Field Museum of Chicago, as a strategic partner, developed a technical document to verify how the PNCAZ has avoided the emission of more than 1.6 million tons of CO2 per year from deforestation, and almost 13 million tons of CO2 during the 2008-2015 period. This led it to be considered a REDD+ megaproject, validated by international standards such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), and the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Standards (CCB). These standards lent legitimacy and credibility to voluntary markets through certificates of greenhouse gases emissions reduction not issued. Thanks to these certificates, the project was able to obtain its registration in Markit, a tool to manage global carbon credits internationally, which in turn led CIMA to work on carbon credits negotiation processes in the international arena.

The legal framework for protected areas in Peru favors a co-management and participatory approach, and enables the establishment of Management contracts between the Peruvian Government and private non-profit organizations, as an effective mechanism to support management. In this context, since its creation, the Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCA) has had technical support from the NGO Center for Conservation, Research and Management of Natural Areas - Cordillera Azul (CIMA - Cordillera Azul). Years later, in 2008, the State signed an agreement with CIMA for the total administration of the Park's operations for a period of 20 years. Under this framework, a Global Development Agreement (GDA) was signed with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID,) the Moore Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Field Museum of Chicago and CIMA, to combine efforts towards the conservation of the PNCAZ and to have financial support during the period 2008-2013. This allowed to establish a long-term vision for the adaptive management of the Park, to implement a participatory management model, and to achieve greater financial sustainability through the leverage of funds for the PNCAZ.

The National System of Protected Areas Act, enacted in July of 2000, established the Conservation Mosaic Approach. Mosaics are a “set of Conservation Units (UC) of equal or different category that are close, adjoining or overlapping, and other public or private protected areas” that are managed in an integrated manner, according to the goals of each UC.

To address the challenge of managing socio-environmental conflicts and optimizing human, financial, and material resources, the Bajo Río Negro Conservation Mosaic was established in 2010, with a total area of 7,329,220 hectares, and integrated by 11 UC, among them the Jaú National Park and the Unini RESEX. The implementation of this approach prioritizes conservation processes for larger areas, which allows for landscape integrated management of areas along the Jaú and Unini rivers to the north, and the Bajo Río Negro to the south of the mosaic. By viewing the protected areas like parts of a larger unit, functional and interconnected, it was necessary to include a participatory methodology in the design of management plans, that encouraged the participation of multiple actors in the decision-making process related to the administration of the territory and its natural resources.

The Jaú National Park represents one of the largest extensions of protected tropical rainforests in the world, protecting a great extent of the Aguas Negras river basin. Due to its prominence, this protected area was prioritized by the Amazon Region Protected Areas Program (ARPA),  a program created in 2002 by the Brazilian Government and managed by the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (Funbio).

The ARPA program has the financial backing from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the German Government, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Amazon Fund, through the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), the Moore Foundation, and currently, private companies that act as donors to the program. The program is designed to last 13 years, and it’s aimed at expanding and strengthening the Brazilian National System of Protected Areas in the Amazon, through the protection of 60 million hectares of conservation units in the Amazonian biome, and ensuring financial resources for the management of those areas in the short and long run. It is implemented in three independent and continuous phases: Phase I between 2003 and 2010, Phase II between 2010 and 2015, and Phase III with a deadline of 25 years.