Community-based participation in this project, in direct collaboration with academic resources, continued being fundamental for the success of the Community-Based Coral Aquaculture and Reef Rehabilitation Program since 2003 . Community-based participation and project engagement was critical in five ways: 1) It was important to strengthen community-based participants theoretical, technical, and hands-on training and education in coral farming, and reef conservation and restoration methods in support to the management of the local MPA; 2)Strengthen the existing community-based emergency rapid response team capable of rapidly providing technical assistance to local government institutions on emergency reef restoration efforts ; 3) Improved the preventive management and maintenance of coral farming units by trained community-based volunteers to reduce impacts from storm swell generated damage to near zero in both, coral farming units and out planted colonies. Regular maintenance was also important to maintain the structural integrity of farming units and to reduce impacts from potential competing taxa and to remove coral predators ; This project further confirmed our decadal-long experience that community-based participation and engagement is a critically successful behavior-transforming outreach and educational tool;Strengthening and empowering base communities to improve their problem analysis and decision-making tools regarding managing their adjacent shallow coral reef ecosystems that constitute their first line of defense against storm swells and sea levelrise.

Nonetheless,ebb flow tray reciprocal feedback from government institutions was lacking most of the time, providing very limited support, in particular, a very weak enforcement of existing no-fishing regulations within the no-take MPA. There was also no enforcement at all regarding LBSP, deforestation of adjacent lands, and the implementation of mandatory erosion and sedimentation control measures. Weak governance and natural resource management failures have been previously identified as key roadblocks to the successful conservation of coastal resources in Puerto Rico . Weak governance can be a major roadblock to MPA, coral farming and reefre habilitation success, and deserves major attention. A particular concern has also been the recent burst in dubious political decisions favoring zoning changes and private development in highly sensitive areas on very steep slopes prone to erosion and in lands adjacent to the shoreline through fast-tracked permits, which halt public scrutiny. Fast-tracked permitting procedures often lack full evaluation of environmental impacts and have resulted in non-sustainable development practices with strong adverse impacts in small tropical islands .

Project timing and phasing on funding agencies is often never coupled with the appropriate environmental conditions needed for successful coral propagation. It is critical that coral farming projects start during cooler months  and this must be stressed out to funding and regulatory agencies when planning funding and reporting cycles for such projects. Coral transplanting during summer or fall should be avoided to reduce or prevent coral mortality and the probability of failure due to high SST stress, runoff impacts, or potential disease outbreaks. Most coral species are also completing their gametogenesis cycle during the warmer months,which require strong energy expenditure and may further compromise their survival if fragmenting and transplanting is conducted before mass spawning occurs. No-take MPAs are often established to protect and help recover reef fish stocks, as well as to restore herbivorous fish guilds, flood and drain tray from fishing impacts . Increased herb ivory can reduce algal cover inside MPAs  and has been shown to be important for recovering coral reef ecosystem resilience by fostering increased coral growth . But it has been suggested that the Wider Caribbean Region has a higher vulnerability to climate change impacts due to its lower resilience, faster rates of macroalgal growth, higher rates of algal recruitment,basin-wide iron-enrichment of algal growth from aeolian dust, lack of Acroporid corals, lower herbivore biomass and missing groups of herbivores, in comparison to Indo-Pacific coral reefs . Lack of coral and fish functional redundancy of Caribbean reefs can also increase its long-term vulnerability to climate change and ocean acidification impacts .