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management practices are threatening the marine envi-
ronment and coordination between marine planning pro-
cesses is lacking, GRID-Arendal plays an important role
in introducing “Ecosystem-based Management” (EbM) to
the whole region.
Transboundary waters
GRID-Arendal is involved in several regions, particularly
in Africa and Eurasia, engaging with countries which have
complicated relationships with each other but share com-
mon waters, such as rivers, lakes and/or seas. For ex-
ample, transboundary rivers form crucial lifelines for the
supply of energy, transport and irrigation for agriculture
in many countries. Several transboundary agreements
over water resources already exist and provide excellent
opportunities for international peaceful collaboration and
improved natural resource management.
In 2013, GRID-Arendal published the
Zambezi River Basin
Atlas of our Changing Environment
, in cooperation with the
Southern African Research and Documentation Centre’s
environment institute, the India Musokotwane Environ-
ment Resource Centre for Southern Africa. Eight countries
in Southern Africa (Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozam-
bique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe) share
this globally important river basin. Credible scientific infor-
mation provided in the Zambezi Atlas will inform the insti-
tutional and legislative processes that will shape develop-
ments in the Zambezi River basin over the next decade.
The publication of the Atlas has renewed interest in ba-
sin management issues among the eight riparian coun-
tries. After the launch in Angola, several governments
expressed interest in the follow-up of the findings of the
atlas. GRID-Arendal also worked with the Zambia Environ-
mental Management Agency to produce the Zambia Atlas
of our Changing Environment.
The Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) and
other institutions have expressed great satisfaction with
the Zambezi Atlas publication. And interest to use the at-
las methodology and visualization has been received from
potential partners such as Germany’s Gesellschaft für In-
ternationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Kreditanstalt für
Wiederaufbau (KwF), which have activities in the Kavango-
Zambezi trans-frontier conservation area. This interest in-
dicates that the atlas work has a major potential to create
real impact on the ground as demonstrated previously
with the
Uganda Atlas of Our Changing Environment
4
that
generated immediate actions and policy decisions (ref.
the final biennium report for 2010-11).
An Eastern-European example of transboundary water
cooperation is the Lake Drukšiai/Drisviaty Basin Man-
4.
http://www.grida.no/publications/the-uganda-atlas/agement Programme. The transboundary water basin of
Drukšiai/Drisviaty Lake is shared by three countries: Lithu-
ania, Belarus and Latvia. The lake is part of a national park
and is included in protected nature reserves and NATURA
2000 network sites, which are fully or partly protected by
national laws. At the same time the basin is an environ-
mental and security hot spot of high concern, especially
in the region of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) with
its nuclear waste storage and repository facilities and the
newly proposed Visaginas NPP. In addition, the national
boundaries represent barriers for implementation of a ba-
sin-wide approach and integration of various water man-
agement aspects. In 2012, an official Drukšiai/Drisviaty
Lake Basin Management Programme (DLB MP) website
and mapping application was launched. The tool has been
shared with all three basin countries and is intended to
stimulate information exchange between the stakeholders
(governments, academia, and NGOs) of the basin.
Another example is the Dniester River Basin, shared by
Moldova and Ukraine, which is the fifth largest trans-
boundary basin in the Black Sea region. GRID-Arendal
has been managing the Information Working Group of
Dniester projects, and assisting the two governments
in the development and negotiations of the Dniester
Treaty, signed on 29 November 2012. The achievements
of the Dniester projects include improved cooperation
and coordination between health authorities in the re-
gion responsible for the quality of drinking water. Trans-
boundary cooperation has been established to conserve
biodiversity, including the management of fish stocks,
improved sharing and management of information on
the basin, and increased awareness among stakeholders
and the public about the value of the water resources in
the Dniester Basin and the threats they face. An on-going
component aims to reduce vulnerability to floods. GRID-
Arendal’s substantive contribution has included the de-
velopment of the ‘Geoportal of the Dniester River Basin’
and production of the
Environmental Atlas
launched in
November 2012.
Five countries’ cooperation is the focus of GRID-Arendal’s
support to the Tehran Convention, the countries sharing
the Caspian Sea: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and
Turkmenistan. For the last three years, GRID-Arendal has
supported the Tehran Convention through providing staff
to the Interim Secretariat, supporting regional assess-
ments and conducting the
Caspian Sea State of the Envi-
ronment
(SoE) report adopted by the Third Conference of
the Parties (COP3). The Caspian SoE report was finalized
and circulated in 2012. During this biennium, the Interim
Secretariat assisted with the preparations for COP4 held
in Moscow in 2012 and with the “Protocol on the Protec-
tion of the Caspian Sea against Pollution from Land-based
Sources and Activities”, which was finalized and adopted
at COP4. The web-based Caspian Environmental Informa-
tion Center (CEIC), designed by GRID-Arendal, serves as a
communication tool for the Secretariat of the Tehran Con-