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Support to the Interim Secretariat of
the Tehran Convention
Support to the Teheran Convention
For the last three years GRID-Arendal has supported the Teh-
ran Convention through providing staff to the Interim Secre-
tariat, supporting regional assessments and conducting the
Caspian Sea State of the Environment (SoE) report adopted
by the Third Conference of the Parties (COP3) in Aktau in
2011. The Caspian SoE 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 Protection of the Caspian Sea
against Pollution from Land-based Sources and Activities
which was finalized and adopted at COP4. The Secretariat
also supported preparations for:
• additional protocols on the Protection of Biological Di-
versity and on Environmental Impact Assessment in a
Trans-boundary Context;
• the implementation strategy of the Aktau oil spill protocol;
• National Convention Action Plans and Public Participa-
tion strategies; and
• COP5 to be held in 2014 in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
Caspian Environmental Information Center (CEIC)
The web-based CEIC, designed by GRID-Arendal, serves as a
communication tool for the Secretariat of the Tehran Conven-
tion and aims to provide reliable and high-quality data and
information for regular SoE reporting of the Caspian Sea.
101
The CEIC concept was developed within the framework
of the Tehran Convention and presented to country del-
egations in March 2012. National Environmental Infor-
101.
http://www.kaspinfo.com/node/749mation Officers (EIOs) were subsequently appointed. It
was agreed that the European Environment Agency (EEA)
would provide support in training of EIOs and assist in the
integration of the CEIC into the EIONET.
102
In addition, in
April 2012, GRID-Arendal entered into an agreement with
BP and its co-venturers to establish the web-based CEIC.
103
Two hands-on workshops held in October 2012 at the
EEA and at GRID-Arendal, exposed participants from 5
Caspian states to European methods of environmental
information management and to all technical aspects of
the operation of the CEIC. The CEIC was subsequently
launched and demonstrated at COP4 in December 2012.
It was welcomed and formally established by the Min-
isters, High-level officials and other conference partici-
pants as “the thesaurus of data and information submit-
ted and collected in the context of the implementation of
the Tehran Convention and its protocols”.
104
In 2013 the portal was upgraded from a pilot to a fully-
functional web resource housing reports, national action
plans, aggregated data, and scientific and legal docu-
ments for environmental issues and activities within the
Caspian region. It also provides a directory of all relevant
government-affiliated organizations and public participa-
tion. The proposal for the next phase of CEIC development
has been prepared and submitted to BP Caspian. Positive
signals have been received from their headquarters, that
the project will be funded.
102. EIONET is a partnership network of the EEA and its member
and cooperating countries involving approximately 1000 experts
and more than 350 national institutions. The network supports
the collection and organisation of data and the development and
dissemination of information concerning Europe’s environment,
following EEA’s methodology for ‘Shared Environmental
Information Systems’ (SEIS).
103.
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9006615&contentId=7074558
104.
http://www.tehranconvention.org/spip.php?article63, paragraph 15
The Protocol on the Protection of the Caspian Sea against Pollution from Land-based Sources and Activities was
finalized and adopted at COP4 in Moscow in 2012.