21
The Sustainable Seas Programme ties well in with the
other programmes and sub-programmes of the Marine
Division. The Blue Carbon Programme and the Ecosys-
tem based Management/Spatial Planning, and the Green
Economy and Natural Resources activity areas are all
closely related to the Sustainable Seas Programme and
form an integrated Marine programmatic area of focus.
GRID-Arendal’s Sustainable Seas work will be part of
the ‘UNEP Global Support Programme: Integrated, Eco-
system-based National and Regional Seas Marine and
Coastal Management and Policy Implementation’. This
is a framework under development that aims to build
capacity for Ecosystem-based management (EbM) in
Regional Seas Conventions. In the meantime, we have
focused attention in 2012-13 on building marine man-
agement and assessment capacities within regional
seas conventions in West Africa and East Asia, thereby
also enabling member states to participate in the World
Ocean Assessment.
EbM approach through Regional Seas Programme in West
Africa
Coastal populations in the 22 member states of the Abid-
jan Convention
14
(the Atlantic coast of Africa, from Mau-
ritania to South Africa) are to a large extent dependent
on the marine environment for food and socio-economic
development. Unsustainable management practices are
threatening the capacity of the marine environment to
provide these ecosystem services, with overfishing, eco-
system degradation and pollution among the most impor-
tant issues in the region. Lack of coordination between
marine planning processes, resulting in conflicts between
sectors, is contributing to the problem. A new, holistic,
EbM approach is urgently required.
The first ‘Abidjan Convention Sustainable Seas Pilot Work-
shop’ took place in Grand-Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire in June
2012. It was organized by the Abidjan Convention Secre-
tariat and GRID-Arendal, in cooperation with the Insti-
tute of Marine Research
15
(Norway), World Wide Fund
for Nature (WWF)
16
and the Ocean Data and Information
Network of Africa (ODINAFRICA)
17
that is a part of the
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO.
18
The meeting was attended by 17 government
representatives from the region who identified regional
14.
http://abidjanconvention.org15.
http://www.imr.no/en16.
http://wwf.panda.org/17.
http://odinafrica.org/18. Further cooperation with ODINAFRICA was discussed in the
ODINAFRICA Planning and Review Workshop in Maputo,
Mozambique in May 2013.
http://ioc-unesco.org/The Shelf Programme
Norwegian Continental Shelf Initiative
Martime boundary delineation
Management of the Marine Environment
Capacity
building
Sustainable Seas
Political
Scienti c
Technical
One Stop
Data Shop
Marine planning
Monitoring and assessment
Natural resources
Ecosystem services
Stakeholder involvement
Capacity
building
and
reporting
Marine mapping portals
State of the
marine environment reporting
Global Sea oor Geomorphology Map
Geology for development
African resources for African development
State of the marine environment reporting
Management and policy implementation
Planning in areas beyond national jurisdiction
NorwegianForeignA airs
UNEP/RegionalSea
AbidjanConvention
Integrated marine and coastal plans
Blue Carbon
WestAfricanLiaisonCommittee
Division forOceanA airsand theLawof theSea
ExtendedWestAfricanLiaisonCommittee
WorldOceanAssessments
ExtendedWestAfricanLiaisonCommittee
NationalExpertsGroups
Rapid regional ocean assessment
Activities
Output
Projects in progress
Projects in development
Theme
Programme
Partners
Sustainable Seas 2012 and 2013 and in the Future
Sustainable Seas 2012 and 2013 and in the future (GRID-Arendal)
Participants at the Abidjan Convention Sustainable Seas Pilot
Workshop in Grand-Bassam, Cote d’Ivoire.
Photo: Wouter Rommens, Consultant GRID-Arendal.