A strong focus on sustainable livelihood development facili-tates marine conservation initiatives. Initial field projects focused on single village occupational group development. With the help of tools like the Fund Model Package (micro-credit mechanism),this has evolved over the years to multiple village occupational groups and more recently to occupational group networks legalized as community enterprises
and community network enterprises under the support of the Agriculture extension
Department. The formation of thematic occupational group networks may enable these groups to develop their own saving system, access funds from rural banks, increase marketing power and share transport costs. The intention of the strengthening
strategy is to identify common problems, such as the lack of ertain product development skills, appropriate packaging development or marketing research to develop links, and bring groups together that produce a similar product or face a similar problem. Groups are brought together through training work-shops or study tours.