Strengthening the Stewardship of the Sargasso Sea, a child project of the Common Oceans Programme, is funded by the Global Environment Facility, with UNDP and IOC-UNESCO as implementing and executing agencies respectively.
This project will produce the first Socio-Ecosystem Diagnostic Analysis (SEDA) for a high seas ecosystem – an ambitious adaptation of the GEF International Waters TDA/SAP methodology. Based on this, and working with stakeholders of the Sargasso Sea, including the Sargasso Sea Commissioners, ten governmental signatories to the Hamilton Declaration and more, the project will produce a comprehensive Strategic Action Programme to conserve this iconic area of the ocean.
You can have too much of a good thing, as the negative impacts of strandings of the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt prove, but the Sargasso Sea and its Sargassum are unique, valuable, and surely deserving of protection.
In addition to Sargassum’s role in supporting endemic species and acting as a nursery for developing fish and turtles, the wider Sargasso Sea also acts as the only spawning ground for the endangered European and American anguillid eels, and provides a migratory corridor for many species of sharks, rays, dolphins, and whales.
The Sargasso Sea also acts as a significant carbon sink, representing ca. 7% of the global biological carbon pump, and this is aided by the sinking of Sargassum to the deep sea when it reaches the end of its life cycle.
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About the GEF/UNDP/IOC/SSC Strengthening the Stewardship of the Sargasso Sea
“Strengthening stewardship through cooperation in an economically and biologically significant high seas area – the Sargasso Sea” is part of the GEF Council Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) programme entitled "Common Oceans - Sustainable utilisation and conservation of biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction"; the programme is financed under the GEF's International Waters focal area.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the GEF implementing agency for the project, with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (IOC-UNESCO) as executing agency.
The project collaborates with the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, the Duke University Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, the Imperial College London Centre for Environmental Policy, the University of Edinburgh, the World Maritime University, and the French Global Environment Facility (FFEM).
The overall objective of the nearly $3 million GEF/UNDP/UNESCO/IOC Sargasso Sea project is to facilitate a collaborative, cross-sectoral, and sustainable stewardship mechanism for the Sargasso Sea through the improvement of the knowledge base and strengthened frameworks for collaborative management and governance.
For more information, visit the Sargasso Sea Commission and Mission Blue websites.
Read also: What is the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt?