State of the Coasts Reporting

Quezon City, Philippines — The development of the State of the Coasts (SOC) reporting system, which is designed to monitor the progress and outcomes of the integrated coastal management (ICM) sites in terms of achieving their sustainable coastal development goals and targets, is one of the key initiatives of PEMSEA under the bridging phase. PEMSEA has undertaken a series of activities in relation to SOC reporting, including the conduct of a Meeting of Experts to discuss the framework for the SOC reporting and a Seminar on the Common Framework for the SOC Reporting during the East Asian Seas Congress 2006 in Haikou City, PR China. Building on the outputs and recommendations from these gatherings and taking into consideration PEMSEA's 14-year experience on ICM implementation in the region, a template for SOC reporting was developed, based on the framework for sustainable development of coastal areas through ICM implementation.

 

A two-day meeting was convened at the Regional Programme Office on 14-15 August to discuss the structure and format of the generic framework and template and to identify a set of appropriate indicators for the SOC reporting. The meeting also reviewed the appropriateness of the template for application at various levels, i.e., local, national and regional. The meeting gained significant inputs from the representatives of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (Dr. Clive Wilkinson); the Department of Environment and Water Resources Australia (Ms. Frankie Seymour) and from the University of the Philippines-Marine Science Institute (Dr. Gil Jacinto and Dr. Andre Uychiaoco) who participated in the meeting.The SOC template is designed to guide the ICM sites in gathering appropriate information or data for the SOC reporting. It will be strengthened by utilizing the Integrated Information Management System for Coastal and Marine Environment, which is already in place in most of the ICM sites. The SOC is expected to serve as a report card for ICM sites, showing the current environmental conditions and how progress has been made in addressing priority environmental concerns based on management interventions undertaken.The SOC reporting will be linked with the ICM Code implementation and ICM recognition/certification system. It will provide the mechanism for the ICM sites to monitor and meet their performance targets based on the requirements of the ICM Code. It will also encourage documentation that will enable assessment and comparison among sites or countries that have/have not adopted the ICM framework and process.An SOC report prototype, using Batangas Bay as a case study, is currently being prepared. It will be presented during the PEMSEA Resource Facility Executive Council Meeting scheduled on 14 September.