The government plays an important role in the promotion of sustainable behaviours through the implementation of regulations and incentives. These, in turn, provide frameworks for communities to engage with their environment in a friendly and conscious way. Incentives are important in influencing individual’s behaviours, as they can make people more motivated and excited to be environmentally friendly. These could be about saving time, money, and/or effort when behaving in concordance with a conservation goal (e.g. saving effort by being able to recycle at home vs. taking the recycled trash to a plant) alongside Environmental Education (Huber, Sloof and Van Praag, 2017). Changing attitudes in individuals and communities is essential, but including incentives can make these behavioural changes accessible and favourable.

Governments can utilise taxation as an effort to control bigger companies,industries and their impact on the environment. For example, by taxing the release of untreated wastewaters in the Mediterranean, it would alter the cost/benefit balance thereby encouraging industries and communities to adopt other sustainable and more acceptable behaviours. In a similar manner, reinforcement contingencies help reduce unsustainable behaviours by creating a culture of punishment for deviators. However, it can also create hostile climates, resistance and mistrust towards the government if regulations and punishments are not perceived as fair and/or appropriate for their situation. This can be improved by giving more control and including the communities in the process of regulation-construction, so that they can be tailored to specific needs and increase compliance.

For example, the UN implemented regulations as an attempt to manage fisheries and limit the exploitation of the Mediterranean. However, according to WWF, 93% of marine stocks are still being overfished. Noticeably, one of the policies being implemented is the reduction of vessels allowed out in sea, which negatively impacts smaller fisheries and coastal communities (vs. bigger fisheries). Henceforth, when looking at the intervention of small fisheries and coastal communities in the Mediterranean, it is important to include their representatives in all the stages of intervention to maximise efficacy. This is to ascertain that policies are not detrimental to one community over the other. It is important to maintain positive attitudes towards sustainable policies and not create hostility in the communities that primarily act them out.

Next: Community management