Global Environment Outlook

GEO-3, the most recent version, provides an overview of the main environmental developments over the past three decades, and how social, economic and other factors have contributed to the changes that have occurred. Addresses land, forests, biodiversity, freshwater, coastal and marine areas, atmosphere, urban areas, and disasters.

Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land Based Activities  (GPA)

The GPA is designed to be a source of conceptual and practical guidance to be drawn upon by national and/or regional authorities for devising and implementing sustained action to prevent, reduce, control and/or eliminate marine degradation from land-based activities.  The GPA aims at preventing the degradation of the marine environment from land-based activities by facilitating the duty of States to preserve and protect the marine environment. The GPA is the only intergovernmental programme that addresses the  inter-linkages between freshwater and the coastal environment.

The Great Apes Survival Project is an innovative and ambitious project of UNEP and UNESCO with an immediate challenge - to lift the threat of imminent extinction faced by gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans.

The Wings Over Wetlands (WOW) Project is the largest international wetland and waterbird conservation initiative ever to take place in the African-Eurasian region.
Its aim is to improve the conservation status of African-Eurasian migratory waterbirds by assisting countries to take measures to conserve key critical wetland areas these birds require to complete their annual migrations across Africa and Eurasia.

UNEP’s Division for Global Environment Facility (GEF) Coordination continues to play a lead role in ensuring that funding flows from the GEF for strategic actions to implement the CBD. The current portfolio of projects related to biodiversity and the CBD totals approximately $300 million (including co-financing from other donors). This includes work in more than 100 countries to help them to prepare National Biosafety Frameworks, a key early step in the Cartagena Protocol’s implementation.

The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre  is the biodiversity assessment and policy support arm of the United Nations Environment Programme. For over twenty-five years the Centre has been undertaking scientific research and providing practical policy advice to help decision makers recognise the value of biodiversity and apply this knowledge to all that they do.
Key programmes at the Centre include Protected Areas (and the World Database on Protected Areas), Ecosystem and Biodiversity Assessments, Biodiversity Indicators, and Species. The Centre also provides support to the multilateral environmental agreements such as Convention on Biological Diversity, CITES, CMS and Ramsar.

The Agreement covers 235 species of birds ecologically dependent on wetlands for at least part of their annual cycle, including many species of pelicans, storks, flamingos, swans, geese, ducks, waders, gulls and terns. UNEP/AEWA covers 119 countries from Europe, parts of Asia and Canada, the Middle East and Africa.

Signed by 150 government leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the Convention on Biological Diversity is dedicated to promoting sustainable development. Conceived as a practical tool for translating the principles of Agenda 21 into reality, the Convention recognizes that biological diversity is about more than plants, animals and micro organisms and their ecosystems – it is about people and our need for food security, medicines, fresh air and water, shelter, and a clean and healthy environment in which to live.

CITES is an international agreement between governments that aims to ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants and their products does not threaten their survival.

Convention on Migratory Species (CMS)

The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (also known as CMS or Bonn Convention) aims to conserve terrestrial, marine and avian migratory species throughout their range.

Among the greatest challenges for biodiversity conservation is the status of migratory species. ‘On the Move to 2010’ was the theme chosen for the eighth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), in Nairobi, in November 2005. On the agenda were proposals to give extra protection to a number of species, including the lowland gorilla, the basking shark, the Mediterranean dolphin and several African and Latin American bird and bat species. New agreements between countries were also signed to catalyze cross-border cooperation to boost the conservation of West Africa’s elephants and the Saiga antelope of Central Asia.

Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) Agreements:

ACAP
AEWA
ACCOBAMS
ASCOBANS
EUROBATS
WADDENSEA SEALS

The Bat Agreement aims to protect all 45 species of bats identified in Europe, through legislation, education, conservation measures and international co-operation with Agreement members and with those who have not yet joined.
The Agreement was set up under the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, which recognises that endangered migratory-species can be properly protected only if activities are carried out over the entire migratory range of the species.

The Convention on Wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, is an intergovernmental treaty which provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.

One of the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity, as set out in its Article 1, is the "fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by appropriate transfer of relevant technologies, taking into account all rights over those resources and to technologies, and by appropriate funding".

The capacity building focus of the initiative includes supporting national implementation of the Action Plan on Capacity Building for Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing, adopted by the CBD Parties in 2004, and helping stakeholders to negotiate mutually beneficial contractual terms by providing information, training materials and relevant tools, in collaboration with the CBD, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and other relevant organizations.

The International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN), established in 2000, is a global partnership of coral reef experts who are working to halt and reverse the decline of the health of the world's coral reefs. Made up of some of the world's leading coral reef scientists and conservation groups, ICRAN partners have created a globally integrated action plan to manage and protect coral reefs, based on recommendations from the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI).

ICIMOD was established in 1983 to promote the development of an economically and environmentally sound mountain ecosystem and improvement of the living standards of mountain populations of the Hind Kush-Himalayan (HKH) Region.

The United Nations System-wide Earthwatch mechanism is a broad UN initiative to coordinate, harmonize and catalyze environmental observation activities among all UN agencies for integrated assessment purposes. The Global Biodiversity Assessment  completed by 1500 scientists under the auspices of UNEP in 1995 updated what we know, or more correctly how little we know, about global biological diversity at the ecosystem, species and genetic levels (Heywood, 1995).