• Invest in community structures and work from bottom-up approaches as well as working with community structures to mainstream sustainable plastic waste management as well as beach clean-ups
• Work with brands to come up with an alternative to plastic packaging as well providing technical assistance to companies to transition.

• Enhance the capacities of community members to be agents of change by empowering them with tools, knowledge, and resources to become change agents
• A multidisciplinary approach must be employed when dealing with hardliners to ensure they are won over or facilitated to have a paradigm shift on the transition to a circular economy
• Outreach and awareness are paramount to reach people with the right messages on streamlining circularity, upcycling on the development

• Conducting immersive workshops have helped strengthened our collaboration as well as cascaded the methodology for usage and application by other organization
• Holding trash bashes, regular beach clean-ups have helped our partners own the journey of cleaning beaches as well as integrating methodological monitoring of plastic waste on beaches

1. Mixed teams (men and women) and the diversity of people participating in the different stages of the value chain promote better performance because they have a robust and complementary view of opinions, perspectives, knowledge and experiences.
2. It is key to involve women in decision making to improve co-management of resources, as the knowledge and experience from their perspective drives the achievement of objectives in a holistic manner within the fisheries; and the diversity of voices balances governance.
3. It is important that women themselves demand their space and demonstrate the benefits that the sector can obtain in the good management of fisheries.
4. The work carried out by men and women are often complementary activities. This avoids a confrontational situation.
5. By emphasizing how gender equality contributes to fishery improvement projects and to the sustainability of fisheries, fishing communities are more likely to adopt a gender perspective in their projects.

• The creation of an initial partnership acted as a catalyst for many more, ending up in an extensive and  self-sustaining network. In Ercolano, some of the vibrant panorama of local associations and cooperatives created in the past two decades can be directly linked to the 5 intensive years of the Herculaneum Centre, and initiatives since to consolidate that progress. The emphasis on new forms of interaction at heritage places continues to be vital.

• Reaching outside of the site resulted in greater benefits for Herculaneum in terms of political and social support for its conservation, additional resources and inclusion in strategic programming.

• A public heritage institution must have in its mandate the concept of ‘working with others’ even if this is not yet captured in legislative and institutional frameworks. A public heritage institution genuinely carries out its purpose by empowering contributions from –  and benefits to – a wider network of local, national and international actors.

• Consultations on fishers needs, in terms of training, was important to provide the right capacity building activities.
• Learning by doing and peer-to-peer exchange were as important as formal trainings.

It was important to have a consultative process to legitimate the elected members of the national LMMA board.

It is very important to meet with government officials on a regular basis, so as to update them on ongoing and planned activities.

Be ready to not have the answer and acknowledge that you do not know what to do.

Continually question why a phenomenon appears and seek the ultimate causes.

Seek understanding from a spectrum of disciplines, perspectives and individuals and recognise that they are all partial interpretations.

Respect everyone, even those acting against you.

Be flexible, adapt to the local situation - if an approach doesn’t work, seek why, keep trying until you find the solution. In dynamic environments solutions will need continual review.

If you want someone to do something, create the context that encourages that action, so you won’t have to be expending resources on enforcement.

Be very transparent and honest in your motivations and expect the same of the people you work with to build trust. Act from genuine motivations and be guided by the local context rather than “blue-print solutions”.

A balance of multiple disciplines and complementary skills on the team. In this case the Director was from a natural science background with some social science experience, while the Field Manager was a social anthropologist with some appreciation of natural science.

• Especially if you are an ‘external’ actor, finding local collaborators with a shared interest, and who are willing to invest some time, is invaluable.
• Start with already existing strategies or the actions participants can see themselves engaging in. Starting with something more ’concrete’ will help people to reflect and think beyond their current reality.
• Designing and planning exercises together with key stakeholders and local partners may help facilitate the process.
• Actor differences make it difficult (or impossible) to find a format, time, topic and language that suits everyone. A recommendation is to run at least part of the process in parallel focus groups in order to be able to go deeper into certain topics that might not be relevant for the whole group.
• Small things matter, like sending individual emails to people adapted to them and their work, finding opportunities to meet in person or join external events organized by the participants of your process.