In a coastal barangay in Southern Leyte, fishers gather beneath a tin-roofed shed. Coffee steams in mismatched mugs. They’re attending a “Kapehan” — an informal community session where they can speak candidly with local fisheries officials.
One man leans forward: Why do some violators get off with a warning while others get fined?
Later, a woman asks: Is registering as a fisher really worth it?
This is the kind of honest, messy, essential dialogue that makes or breaks conservation efforts.
This is behavior change in action. And Rare is learning how to track it — and adapt — in real time.
The challenge: what happens between strategy and impact?
Behavior-centered design has become a buzzword in conservation — and for good reason. From overfishing to deforestation, lasting environmental progress depends on people making better choices.
But even the best-designed interventions can fall short in the space between program launch and long-term impact. We know what we want or intend to change, but not always the drivers behind the change, or what’s missing when it doesn’t happen.
Most environmental programs still struggle with two blind spots:
- They don’t measure actual behavior change with enough rigor.
- They don’t manage adaptively once implementation begins.
This “black box” leaves implementers unsure whether to stay the course or pivot — especially when traditional monitoring focuses on outputs and outcomes, not the psychological and social shifts that make behavior change stick. They lack clear, evidence-based tools to map out how change will happen or track progress in real time. Too many interventions are launched with a strong theory and a fixed Gantt chart and left unchanged, even when evidence suggests the need to pivot.
Rare is tackling this gap head-on. Through our work with coastal fishers in Southern Leyte, in the Philippines’ Southern Visayas Islands, we deployed two complementary tools that help implementers design for behavior change and manage for it: Psycho-Social Theories of Change (PS-ToCs) and pulse monitoring.
Together, they form a new adaptive model for behaviorally informed conservation.
Tool # 1: Psycho-Social Theories of Change (PS-ToCs)
Clarifying how behavior change works
A PS-ToC is a behaviorally refined theory of change. It maps how program activities aim to shift key psychological and social drivers (e.g., trust, beliefs, norms, identity, and perceived control) that precede behavior change.
PS-ToCs help open the black box at the heart of implementation. Instead of relying on assumptions or intuition, they make the internal logic of behavior change visible and testable, helping teams focus resources for greater impact and making evaluation more meaningful.
In Southern Leyte, Rare partnered with local teams to test its Theory of Change (PS-ToCs) for coastal fisheries with coastal fishing communities. As the program rolled out across municipalities, this wasn’t just about launching activities. It was a learning process focused on two behaviors essential to sustaining coastal fisheries: participating in local management bodies and complying with fishing rules. When adopted widely, these actions create stronger, more resilient fisheries.
Through surveys and focus groups, we tracked changes in behavioral drivers. If we saw progress, the program advanced. If not, we asked: What’s missing or needs to change? That flexibility let us adapt in real time — a critical piece in designing strategies grounded in evidence and local realities.
Why it works
By embedding behavior science into the program’s logic, the tool allowed teams to:
- Design more targeted, grounded interventions
- Align on what success looks like at each stage
- Adapt strategies when psychosocial signals lag
For more on monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness and impact of behavior change solutions, see behavior.rare.org.
Tool #2: Pulse Monitoring
Real-time insight, real-time response
While traditional surveys offer a static snapshot, pulse monitoring is like taking the community’s pulse.
It’s a method of collecting real-time, frequent insights from communities during program implementation. In Rare’s case, we were interested in key psycho-social indicators, like trust, legitimacy of local institutions, and social norms, which are expected to change during conservation program delivery.
In three coastal towns of Southern Leyte — Hinunangan, San Juan, and Hinundayan — we recently piloted a mobile-based system to connect directly with nearly 1,000 fishers. Using interactive voice response (IVR) surveys in local dialects, we heard straight from the people at the heart of our fisheries work.
This pilot wasn’t just about testing technology; it was also about listening. We learned when fishers were most likely to answer calls, what types of questions felt comfortable and familiar, and what barriers kept others from engaging. These insights are helping us design a more accessible, fisher-friendly mobile system that meets people where they are — on their phones, in their language, and on their own time.
By starting with what works for fishers, we’re building tools that collect data and facilitate connections.
Why it works:
- This works on any phone, reaching fishers in their own dialects, without need for internet or reading. It fits their routine by reaching fishers when it worked for them.
- It can give implementation teams real-time behavioral insights needed to adjust activities midstream.
- The system can complement existing monitoring and works in hard-to-reach areas.
Pulse monitoring is more than a monitoring tool; it supports on-the-ground course correction. When data revealed skepticism about enforcement or confusion around rules, Rare responded quickly by adjusting messaging, hosting additional dialogues, and shifting outreach strategies. This kind of responsive feedback loop is exactly what makes pulse monitoring powerful. We’re now using these insights to shape future pilots and continue building a system that listens, learns, and evolves with the communities it serves.
For an in-depth look into Rare’s pulse monitoring pilot, explore the case study.
Testing the tools in the field
Rare piloted PS-ToCs and pulse monitoring in the Philippines through its coastal fisheries program, Fish Forever, embedding them into field implementation and evaluation cycles. The goal was to strengthen community-led fisheries’ governance by driving the adoption of three key fishing behaviors: participation in management, compliance with fishing rules, and fisher registration.
Key activities included:
- Co-creating PS-ToCs with field teams to clarify behavior pathways
- Identifying ‘pulse’ indicators tied to trust, perceived efficacy, and perceived norms
- Collecting near real-time data via mobile and in-person check-ins
- Adapting implementation based on live feedback.
Results from the pilots made it clear that these tools lead to action. In southern Leyte, this came to life through Kapehan sessions (literally, ‘coffee time’).
From data to dialogue: how kapehan sessions bridged the gap
In 2024, Rare’s field team noticed something important in the pulse data. While fishers understood the local rules, many felt unsafe talking about enforcement. Qualitative research revealed something deeper: confusion around fishing boundaries, registration, and permit requirements, as well as frustration with inconsistent enforcement and perceived political favoritism.
In response, Rare worked with local government and fishers to pilot Kapehan, Karagatan, Kaalaman (literally, coffee time, ocean, knowledge) sessions — informal dialogues over coffee where fisherfolk and management officials could engage directly in discussions about coastal resources. Using Rare’s emerging Community Engagement Behavior Adoption (CEBA) tool, sessions were co-designed with local teams to align with community needs and behavioral insights.
These dialogues:
- Created a safe space for candid discussion
- Strengthened social norms through peer role modeling
- Gave voice to underrepresented groups, especially women
- Uncovered critical implementation gaps around trust and follow-through
In response, the program scaled contextually-adapted sessions in Southern Leyte, enhancing them with feedback loops and neutral facilitation to build transparency and trust in governance. Without this kind of insight from the sessions, the emotional dynamics behind compliance would have remained hidden — another blind spot in the black box between program design and community behavior.
The result?
- A measurable increase in peer-to-peer discussions of rules
- Stronger perceptions of collective compliance
- Greater willingness to report violations or engage with fish wardens
As this example shows, PS-ToCs and pulse monitoring aren’t just design or evaluation tools — they equip teams to adjust strategy with behavioral feedback from the field, aligning program theory with real-world dynamics and giving implementers the confidence to adapt as conditions evolve.
This isn’t just a smart strategy; it’s adaptive behavior science in action.
Why It matters — for implementers and funders
For implementers, these tools offer a new level of clarity and agility:
- Ground your programs in real-world behavioral insights
- Adapt in real time — without waiting for endline evaluations.
- Track not just if behavior changes, but why
For funders, PS-ToCs and pulse monitoring provide visibility into what’s working and where support is most needed:
- Go beyond outputs and outcomes to test program logic and assumptions
- Invest in learning cycles, not just activities
- Get better returns on investment through smarter, more responsive delivery
- Use a stronger evidence base to support learning and scaling
What’s next: Scaling smarter conservation
Rare is scaling these tools across its global programs and making them available to the broader conservation community. The upcoming work includes:
- Open-access resources and real-time findings at behavior.rare.org
- A stronger evidence base to demonstrate impact and improve effectiveness
We’re also exploring how these tools can support funder learning agendas that close the black box among program theory, delivery, and behavioral outcomes — starting with the people who live conservation every day.
Join us
Behavior change isn’t a one-time event. It’s a journey. And it needs feedback loops.
Rare’s tools make those loops real. With PSToCs and pulse monitoring, we’re building a smarter, more adaptive approach to conservation, grounded in local voices and real-time evidence.
Explore more tools, case studies, and insights at behavior.rare.org.
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