News

The 22nd Global Meeting of the Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans was held in a hybrid format on 25-27 May 2022 in  Mahé, Seychelles. Eighteen Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans, including NOWPAP and global Multilateral Environmental Agreements representatives, attended the meeting.

NOWPAP was invited to attend the Second General Assembly of the 21st-Century Maritime Cooperation Committee and the Forum on Smart Ocean organized by the Committee in collaboration with the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the Fuzhou Municipal People's Government of China on 17-18 May 2022.

2022 Sustainable Development Transformation Forum

Building back better from the COVID-19 pandemic and fostering the

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a practicable tool to provide information on biodiversity. This tool has been developed in the field of molecular biology and has big potential to reduce the time and effort for modern biological monitoring. The rapid technological development in eDNA analysis has happened during the last decade.

The UNEP-coordinated Regional Seas Programme (RSP), which includes globally eighteen individual Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans (RSCAP), is one of the key comparative advantages of UNEP in the field of the Regional Ocean Governance (ROG).

The 18th Focal Points Meeting of NOWPAP Pollution Monitoring Regional Activity Centre was held online on 7-8 December 2021. The scientists from the Northwest Pacific region reviewed the projects implemented in 2020 and 2021 and agreed to the work plan in the next biennium.

Seagrass habitats are valuable coastal ecosystems in maintaining marine biodiversity and mitigating climate change by absorbing and storing carbon. The Special Monitoring and Coastal Environment Assessment Regional Activity Centre (CEARAC) of the Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP) organised its first webinar for mapping seagrass by optical sensors from 30 November to 02 December 2021.

The Regional Kick-off Conference of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2021) (Ocean Decade) in the Western Pacific and its adjacent areas was organised by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Thailand, and the Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific (WESTPAC), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO on 25-26 November 2021.

The 15th Environmental Subcommittee Meeting of the Association of North East Asia Regional Governments (NEAR) and the Meeting on countermeasures against Marine Litter in the North-East Asian Region were organised back-to-back through a virtual meeting by the Government of Toyama Prefecture, NEAR, and the Northwest Pacific Region Environmental Cooperation Centre (NPEC) on Nov 17, 2021.

Key Points:

     -Introduction of a Google Earth Engine app that allows a globally consistent assessment of eutrophication in a way never done before

The year of 2021 marks the 30th Anniversary of the Republic of Korea (ROK) joining the United Nations. To celebrate this event, the United Nations offices in ROK and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of ROK jointly organized a virtual Policy Dialogue on the Future of Multilateralism and the Role of the Republic of Korea on 22 October 2021.

Experts from China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Russian gathered online at the Expert Meeting 2021 and the 19th Focal Points Meeting of the Data and Information Network Regional Activity Center (DINRAC) on 13 and 14 October 2021 to review the progress of the regional cooperation in marine environmental data and information sharing and explore ways of strengthening the current cooperation.

In response to an urgent need for effective regional ocean governance, the Sustainable Ocean Initiative (SOI) was established at the margins of COP 10, through the leadership of Japan, COP 10 Presidency, and in collaboration with various intergovernmental and nation partners willing to provide the necessary support to this global initiat

NOWPAP RCU Toyama office staff joined the beach clean-up campaign at Iwasehama Beach in the morning of 28 September 2021. This event was a traditional annual campaign organized by the Northwest Pacific Region Environmental Cooperation Center (NPEC) together with Toyama Prefecture and Toyama City government officials. About 60 people participated in this event, including 40 school kids from a local elementary school and a high school and several NGO representatives and local residents.

The annual meeting of the Marine Environmental Quality Committee (MEQ) of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) was held online on 22 September 2021. The meeting reviewed the implementation of PICES 2019 decisions. The Section on Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms in the North Pacific (S-HAB), the Advisory Panel on Marine Non-indigenous Species (AP-NIS), and the Working Group on Indicators of Marine Plastic Pollution (WG 42) reported their activities in 2020 and proposed plans for 2021 and beyond.

Representatives from governmental agencies, research institutes, international and non-governmental organizations gathered online on 15-16 September 2021 to review the progress in implementing the Regional Action Plan on Marine Litter in the Northwest Pacific region.

The Korea Global Forum for Peace 2021 was organised from 31 August to 2 September 2021. The Forum was hosted by the Ministry of Unification (MOU) of the Republic of Korea. The key aim was to discuss the peace and unification process in the Korean Peninsula. As one of the regional players, NOWPAP was invited to present its activities at the Forum. NOWPAP was represented by RCU.

Experts from the Northwest Pacific region and partners gathered at the 18th Focal Points Meeting of the Special Monitoring and Coastal Environmental Assessment Regional Activity Centre (CEARAC) of the Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP) on 24-25 August 2021 to review the progress in monitoring and assessment of the coastal environment in the NOWPAP region.

NOWPAP was invited to introduce its achievements and lessons learned in addressing marine litter in an online workshop on marine litter management organised by the 21st Century Maritime Cooperation Committee and World Association of Major Metropolises from 25 to 27 August 2021.

Toyama Cosmopolitan Association (TCA), hosted by Toyama City, is responsible for the international cultural exchange and providing various aid to foreign residents living in Toyama. TCA and NOWPAP have had a long history of collaboration since the establishment in 2004.

Since 1996, the Northwest Pacific Region Environmental Cooperation Center (NPEC) has carried out several surveys of marine litter on beaches with citizens‘ participation under the framework

The Focal Points and partners of the Marine Environmental Emergency Preparedness and Response Regional Activity Centre (MERRAC) of NOWPAP gathered online at the 23rd MERRAC Focal Point Meeting (FPM) and the 15th Competent National Authorities (CNA) Meeting on 7-8 July 2021 to explore measures to further strengthen the regional cooperation on addressing maritime disasters.

Experts from China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Russia, and representatives from international organizations and research institutes met online, exploring the cooperation in identifying pollution sources through oil fingerprinting and addressing illegal discharge of pollutants from ships on 5 and 6 July 2021.

A group of marine scientists from the Northwest Pacific Region gathered online on 18 May 2021, discussing how to develop a detailed project proposal for a bigger intervention to strengthen the efforts of the NOWPAP Member States in conserving biological diversity in the NOWPAP region.

The Northwest Pacific Region Environmental Cooperation (NPEC), the host organisation of the NOWPAP Special Monitoring and Coastal Environmental Assessment Regional Activity Centre (CEARAC), organised an online Progress Meeting on the development of a Near Real-Time Monitoring System for Marine and Coastal Eutrophication Using Google Earth Engine (GEE) on 7 May 2021.