The 2012 PEMSEA Network of Local Governments for Sustainable Coastal Development (PNLG) Forum General Assembly was held at the Changwon Hotel, Changwon City, Republic of Korea on 8 July 2012. The Changwon City Government hosted the forum. This publication summarizes the outcome of the forum.

The Ninth (9th) Executive Committee Meeting was held at the PEMSEA Resource Facility, Manila, Philippines, from 24 to 25 October 2011. This publication summarizes the output of the meeting. The Meeting was attended by the EAS Partnership Council Chair, Dr. Chua Thia-Eng; Technical Session Chair, Mr. Hiroshi Terashima; Council Co-Chair Ambassador Mary Seet-Cheng; Intergovernmental Session Co-Chair Undersecretary Analiza Rebuelta-Teh; and Technical Session Co-Chair Prof. Chul-Hwan Koh. A representative from the Ocean Policy Research Foundation of Japan participated as an observer. The PEMSEA Resource Facility (PRF) served as the Secretariat for the meeting.

The Seas of East Asia (EAS) are bordered by China, Japan and the Korean Peninsula in the north and the Southeast Asian nations in the south. The region harbours a significant part of the world’s coral reefs and mangroves and also produces about 40 percent of the world’s fish catch and more than 80 percent of aquaculture. The human pressure on marine and coastal resources is very high with approximately 2 billion people living in the region. The EAS region encompasses a series of large marine ecosystems (LME), subregional seas and their coastal areas. This includes the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the South China Sea, Gulf of Thailand, the Sulu-Celebes Sea and the Indonesian Seas — six LMEs of great ecological and economic importance. The physical extent of each LME and its boundaries are based on four linked ecological, rather than political or economic, criteria: (1) bathymetry; (2) hydrography; (3) productivity; and (4) trophic relationships. Globally, the LMEs are centers of coastal ocean pollution and nutrient over-enrichment, habitat degradation (e.g., seagrasses, corals, and mangroves), overfishing, biodiversity loss, and climate change effects. This report is taking stock of results of GEF projects in these LMEs, including overlaps with two LMEs bordering Australia. Yellow Sea (LME #48) East China Sea (LME #47) South China Sea (LME #36) Gulf of Thailand (LME #35) Sulu-Celebes (Sulawesi) Sea (LME #37) Indonesian Sea (LME #38) North Australian Shelf (Arafura Sea, Gulf of Carpentaria) (LME #39) Northwest Australian Shelf (Timor Sea) (LME #45) The countries that border these LMEs are: Australia; Brunei; Cambodia; China; DPR Korea; Indonesia; Japan; Malaysia; Philippines; RO Korea; Singapore; Thailand; Timor-Leste; and Viet Nam.

The East Asian Seas Stocktaking Meeting was held at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Auditorium A, Manila, Philippines from 28-29 October 2010. The ADB and Government of the Philippines through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources hosted the meeting. The objective of the meeting was to assess the status and identify the constraints to sustainable management of the regional seas, and to prioritize the interventions and the potential role of the GEF over the next 4 years (i.e., 2011 to 2014). The Stocktaking Meeting concluded the following: The Stocktaking Background Paper was well received and considered to be a good and useful document in the context of the stocktaking effort. It will undergo refinement based on inputs provided during the meeting. The refined paper will then be disseminated to GEF agencies, GEF Secretariat, participating countries and concerned regional organizations. Country ownership and country-drivenness to address transboundary issues in the Seas of East Asia have developed and strengthened over the years with GEF support, as evidenced by the development and adoption of the SDS-SEA and the YSLME and SCSLME SAPs with their associated national action plans as well as by the implementation of the pollution reduction investment fund. PEMSEA and the SDS-SEA, respectively, can provide a regional governance mechanism, framework and scope for integrated and collaborative planning, coordination, and monitoring and reporting of outputs and impacts of regional, subregional and national projects for sustainable management of the seas of East Asia, as well as to promote knowledge management and associated good practices. There are recognized needs for increased programmatic GEF investments in the EAS region according to a programmatic agenda covering: Knowledge-sharing, advocacy, communication, development and dissemination and good practices, and capacity development/training, awareness building and education; Thematic priorities including: the blue agenda with marine and coastal habitat and resource conservation and management (with an increase attention to fisheries resources); and the brown agenda: land-based sources of marine pollution. In addition, climate change adaptation is a cross-cutting priority to be mainstreamed in the two above thematic priorities. Scaling up of investments at the local and national levels in support of capital works identified and developed in coastal areas in the context of ICM, when possible, through linkages with the public and private sectors, using domestic and international finance; A shift from projects that have a planning focus to projects that promote good practices, implement agreed plans and result in desired on-the-ground changes. A programmatic agenda to scale up entails: Working across sectors and in several countries; Mobilizing resources programmatically within and across different sources of finance and different sectors; and Making effective and efficient use of available human and financial resources by increasing synergy and alignment. GEF agencies now need to work with countries to develop the regional and national projects using a programmatic approach for submission to GEF in order to support the regional implementation of SDS-SEA (final phase), the YSLME SAP and the SCSLME SAP as well as to scale up country-based actions along the lines of the identified thematic priorities.