NOWPAP Pushes Activities With Various Partners

 

At the EAS Partnership Council Meeting
In order to strengthen the relationship with the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA), a representative of the NOWPAP Regional Coordinating Unit (RCU)  attended the 6th East Asian Seas (EAS) Partnership Council Meeting held on 23-24 June 2014 in Manila, Philippines. Many NOWPAP activities are contributing to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia (SDS-SEA) adopted in 2003 by PEMSEA countries and NOWPAP has served as a Non-Country member of the EAS Partnership Council since 2007. The NOWPAP representative made a presentation at the meeting on NOWPAP activities and discussed possible joint activities between NOWPAP and PEMSEA in 2014 and 2015. As a result, PEMSEA will send an expert to participate in the NOWPAP POMRAC workshop on Ecological Quality Objectives to be held in Busan, RO Korea, in September 2014, and PEMSEA experts have also reviewed the draft ICARM Guidelines prepared by NOWPAP POMRAC. In 2015, PEMSEA and NOWPAP POMRAC are expected to organize a joint training course on ICARM.
Two workshops convened for Regional Seas
NOWPAP has also attended two technical workshops convened by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) from 30 June to 4 July 2014 in Geneva.  The workshops were attended by participants from individual Regional Seas Programmes and relevant international organizations.
The technical workshop on selecting indicators for the state of Regional Seas marked the starting point of setting a "core set" of indicators to be used by the Regional Seas to assess the state of marine environment, pressures, response, etc. A plan of NOWPAP POMRAC to develop of the Ecological Quality Objectives for the NOWPAP region was introduced during the workshop. The visioning workshop for the future of the Regional Seas was designed to get a preliminary consensus among individual Regional Seas programmes regarding their possible areas of work in the coming 5-10-40 years. After a few plenary and breakout sessions, four broad areas were agreed upon for the next 10 years (and probably beyond); (a) ecosystem services (with focus on extraction of living and non-living resources); (b) pollution; (c) governance; and (d) climate change impacts (including ocean acidification).
Implementation plans agreed at three RACs Focal Points Meetings
Three of the four NOWPAP regional activity centers (RACs), namely MERRAC, DINRAC and CEARAC, have convened their focal points meetings (FPMs) in June-July 2014 in Daejeon, RO Korea; Beijing, China; and Toyama, Japan, respectively. While reviewing the activities carried out since their previous FPMs, the focal points of MERRAC, DINRAC and CEARAC discussed and agreed on the implementation plans for the activities and projects to be implemented in 2014-2015 biennium which were approved by the 18th NOWPAP Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) in December 2013.
For CEARAC: (1) Pilot assessment of impacts of major threats to marine biodiversity in selected sea areas; (2) Trial application of the screening procedure of the NOWPAP common procedure for eutrophication assessment; (3) Case studies of seagrass mapping in selected sea areas. For DINRAC: (1) Annual update of existing DINRAC databases and website pages; and (2) Collection of information on endangered/threatened marine species in the NOWPAP region. For MERRAC: (1) NOWPAP DELTA exercise (full-scale oil spill response exercise) in Russia; (2)  Database update on oil and HNS spill response equipment and experts; (3) Development of an online pollution reporting system; (4) Risk assessment of oil spill incidents. In addition, the three RACs will carry out activities related to marine litter according to the NOWPAP Regional Action Plan on Marine Litter (RAP MALI), covering case studies of marine litter management in river basin, distribution and impact of floating marine litter, and enriching database on marine litter. In order to enhance cooperation between NOWPAP and its major partners, the RAC focal points as well as representatives from PICES, NEASPEC, YSLME, and IOC WESTPAC exchanged information and discussed ways of collaboration in the future, including co-convening workshops.
POMRAC will have its FPM in September 2014 in Busan, Korea.