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Gearing up for the next decade of healthy oceans

PEMSEA

Por IW:LEARN

14 de July de 2020

Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA), an intergovernmental organization operating in East Asia to foster and sustain healthy and resilient oceans, coasts, communities and economies across the region, has been consolidating its gains in the past 26 years and implementing newfound initiatives in the region, in accordance with the UN SDGs and other international and regional commitments.

The 2019 PEMSEA Annual Report provides a look back on its collaborative efforts for what is quickly shaping up to be a decade of definitive action towards healthy coasts and oceans.

On the verge of a new decade, PEMSEA’s focus for 2019 centered on an expansion of target accomplishments, an expansion of geographic reach and scope, and an expansion on activities that address specific issues relating to marine pollution and ocean health, but always nested within the broader integrated coastal management (ICM) system.

Gearing up for the next decade of healthy oceans

Surpassing ICM targets in the region

Efforts to scale up the execution of the 2018-2022 Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia (SDS-SEA) Implementation Plan were in full swing in 2019. Eleven country partners and collaborators, namely Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Philippines, RO Korea, Singapore, Timor-Leste, Thailand, and Viet Nam reported on their respective initiatives to implement their integrated coastal management (ICM) programs at both the national and local levels.

Targeting to achieve at least 25% coverage of the region’s coastline and contiguous watershed areas through ICM programs by 2021, as agreed in the 5th East Asian Seas Ministerial Declaration or the Da Nang Compact, scaling up ICM aims to: increase the areal extent and resilience of ecosystems in selected priority sites of the 11 partner countries; replicate good practices in the application of ICM tools to new sites; mobilize technical and investment support to scale up ICM implementation on the ground; implement certification programs for local governments, universities and ICM professionals; and catalyze public and private investments and participation in scaling up the implementation of ICM programs.

As of December 2019, ICM coverage of the region’s coastline was estimated at 37.9%, surpassing PEMSEA’s target of 25%, and achieved well before the 2021 deadline. PEMSEA’s focus in the remaining two years of the SDS-SEA’s implementation is to ensure that each country fulfills its own targets by the end of 2022 and to keep the progress of their ICM activities on track. More importantly, it is critical that the countries also measure the effectiveness and impacts of their ICM programs over the next two years, as well as validate the coastline coverage that was reported in 2019.

PEMSEA partner countries mainstream and scale up their ICM programs to protect, manage and restore ocean health and productivity. It is heartening to note significant progress on the application and implementation of integrated coastal management programs at the local level, which is crucial to securing the common vision of healthy oceans, peoples and economies.

Navigate the detailed ICM map at the SEA Knowledge Bank

Capacity building efforts across PEMSEA’s country and non-country partners were intensified throughout the region. PEMSEA built new partnerships and relationships in two regional meetings of Global Environment Facility (GEF) IW:LEARN -- the Asia Pacific Network Meeting in February and the Caribbean LME+ Partnership Forum in September. Furthermore, PEMSEA participated in the Data and Information Management (DIM) Meeting in July held in Paris. This workshop is an initiative of the GEF LME:LEARN project in facilitating a more harmonious data and information management system, with improved capacity to report progress and results across the many GEF LME action programmes aligned to UN SDGs. The DIM workshop was echoed in the Asian region through the Regional Workshop on DIM held in December at the Regional Capacity Center for Clean Seas (RC3S) in Bali, jointly organized with PEMSEA, and participated by representatives from various GEF Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) projects in the region.

The UN’s proclamation during the General Assembly on 5 December 2017 of the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) designates the next ten years for mobilizing ocean stakeholders worldwide to ensure ocean science can fully support countries in achieving their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This brings an opportunity for PEMSEA’s country and non-country partners to bridge the science-policy and action interface by promoting knowledge exchange and sharing lessons in implementing and adapting science-based management tools at the regional, national and local levels, through the joint PNLC-PNLG forum and other forms of collaborative undertaking.

Key results related to PEMSEA's preparations for “Gearing up for the Next Decade of Healthy Oceans” in line with the strategic direction set by the UN Decade of Ocean Science, as well as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, from 2021 to 2030 are also presented in the Annual Report.

Read or download the Report: PEMSEA Annual Report 2019: Gearing up for the next decade of healthy oceans

About PEMSEA

PEMSEA started as one of the first International Waters (IW) projects supported by the GEF, namely the Prevention and Management of Marine Pollution in the East Asian Seas implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), executed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and hosted by the Government of the Philippines within the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. It was succeeded by a second phase with a thrust to build intergovernmental, interagency and multisectoral partnerships in environmental management in the region, that evolved into an international legal entity in 2009 and continues to facilitate regional governance mechanism and framework for the sustainable management of the seas of East Asia. PEMSEA is the implementing partner of the ongoing GEF-funded, UNDP-managed Arafura and Timor Seas Ecosystem Action Programme (ATSEA-2).