TECHNICAL WORKSHOP FOR ESTABLISHING A REGULAR PROCESS FOR THE GLOBAL ASSESSMENT OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
(UNEP GOVERNING COUNCIL DECISION 21/13)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The UNEP Governing Council (GC) adopted at its 21st session in February 2001 a decision concerning a "Global Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment" (UNEP GC Decision 21/13). Article 4 of this Decision requests the Executive Director,

"……in co-operation with IOC/UNESCO and other UN agencies, the CBD Secretariat, and the regional seas programmes to explore the feasibility of establishing a regular process for the assessment of the state of the marine environment, with active involvement by governments and regional agreements, building on ongoing assessment programmes."

To implement UNEP GC Decision 21/13, a first informal consultative meeting was held in Reykjavik, 12-14 September 2001. This meeting strongly agreed that a global assessment of the marine environment (GMA) was both desirable and urgently needed and welcomed the opportunity to examine the feasibility of developing this process with all relevant stakeholders. Furthermore, this meeting recommended, inter alia, that the GMA process should be aimed at policy-makers. Based on a scientific assessment of the global marine environment, the GMA should provide this target audience with advice, guidance and assistance on actions required to mitigate environmental impacts and changes.

In the light of the outcome of the Reykjavik meeting, UNEP decided to convene a second meeting in form of a technical workshop to further elaborate the key objectives and define the practical framework for developing a GMA process. This workshop was kindly hosted by the German government in Bremen, 18-20 March 2002. Funds from the German and Swedish government enabled a large number of interested developing countries and international organisations to be represented at the workshop, thereby expanding the audience involved in the consultations to implement UNEP GC Decision 21/13 at both meetings to 16 countries and 10 regional and 14 global Conventions, Agreements and organisations.

The fruitful discussions at the workshop revealed a broad consensus between participants. The main agreements are reflected in the section 'Recommendations and Conclusions from the Meeting' in the attached Proceedings, which is summarised in the following paragraphs.

The main goals for the establishment of a suitable GMA mechanism are to provide on a regular, timely and scientific basis the necessary assessments of the state and trends of all aspects of marine ecosystems. These assessments should be built upon existing mechanisms related to and/or relevant for marine environmental assessments. They should involve and be used by policy makers and stakeholders on the national, regional and global level.

In addition, the GMA could have number of potential functions with respect to the planning and implementation of regional and global assessment processes. For practical reasons, it might be necessary to focus the GMA process by setting assessment priorities.

In general, GMA stakeholders are those involved in policy or affected by degradation of the marine environment. To ensure legitimacy, credibility and saliency, GMA stakeholder groups should be defined on the regional level.

The GMA should take a broad ecosystem approach based on commonly accepted ecological boundaries, addressing in particular those marine areas and/or human activities, which currently are not sufficiently covered by assessment activities as well as less understood ecosystems, communities and species. The scope of GMA activities should include socio-economic considerations and take into account the relevant work, approaches and experience of national, regional and global organisations. The global assessment component of the GMA process will guide the timing and facilitate the development of regional or thematic assessments on specific issues.

The main data providers for the GMA are intergovernmental organisations, government agencies, and academia, but other sources of valuable, pertinent data should be investigated.

The institutional mechanisms and operational arrangements of the GMA process should have a multilevel architecture (cf. diagram in Annex X of the attached Proceedings, as an example) to ensure:

• Legitimacy, Credibility and Saliency

by applying a science-based approach which involves national, regional and global policymakers and provides an interface with all stakeholders, assessment users and data providers. Regional assessments and their synthesis into global assessment(s) should be peer reviewed by independent experts;

• Cost-Effectiveness, Efficiency and Sustainability

by building on existing assessment resources (where possible) in terms of organisation, methodologies and procedures. Regional mechanisms and partnerships, where governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations are engaged fully on an equal footing, should be used and (where necessary) strengthened.

The expected outputs of the GMA should be subject to a transparent peer review and reported in a 'two-tier' format, consisting of a scientific/technical report (1st tier) and a policy-oriented report based on the same information (2nd tier).

Wherever possible, the costs and funding of a GMA process, including capacity building, should be covered by utilising or re-directing existing sources and funds.

As a next step, the GMA process should be raised, inter alia, in the context of the:

• United Nations Informal Consultative Process (ICP) on Oceans;
• World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD);
• regional conventions and action programmes, fisheries bodies and other relevant regional organisations.

to increase the awareness on the global, regional and national level.

Furthermore, a review of the scope, status and timing of existing and forthcoming assessment and assessment-related activities carried out under relevant national, regional and global organisations will be undertaken to identify gaps in their coverage and ways in which they could be integrated into the GMA process.

The outcome of all activities carried out in the context of implementing UNEP GC Decision 21/13 will be reported to the UNEP Governing Council in February 2003. Further information about the proposed GMA process, including the documents, presentations and proceedings of the meetings in Reykjavik and Bremen, are given on the web site http://www.unep.org/marineassessment/.

The complete outcome of the meeting can be viewed here