News

The Science Board of PICES recently approved the proposals submitted by NOWPAP CEARAC and MERRAC to have joint workshop/session during the next PICES Annual Meeting to be organized in October 2015 in Qingdao, China.

The NOWPAP DELTA Joint Oil Spill Response Exercise was conducted on 21 October 2014 near Vladivostok, Russia.  This joint exercise brought together one helicopter and seventeen ships including one from Japan Coast Guard to test rescuing crew members, firefighting and responding to oil spill.  Korea dispatched observers to the exercise which was completed successfully.   Such full-scale exercises have been organized five times in NOWPAP member states since the Regional Oil and HNS Spill Contingency Plan was adopted in 2004.     

Representatives of NOWPAP RCU and RACs participated in the 2014 PICES annual meeting held in Yeosu, Korea. The joint Study Group was established in 2013 to explore possibilities of enhancing future collaboration between NOWPAP and PICES and members of the Study Group have met in Yeosu on 15-16 October 2014.  At the meeting, several potential areas of interest were discussed in detail and priorities of both organizations were assigned to each area.  After scoring those priorities and considering practical possibilities of joint actions (e.g., organizing joint worksho

The 19th NOWPAP Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) was convened on 20-22 October 2014 in Moscow, Russian Federation.  Delegates from NOWPAP member states (China, Japan, Korea and Russia) attended the meeting. Directors and representatives of NOWPAP Regional Activity Centres, UNEP Headquarters and United Nations Office at Nairobi also participated in the meeting.  The meeting reviewed the progress of NOWPAP implementation in 2013-2014 and discussed the financial rules and procedures for the NOWPAP funds with an agreement to establish working capital reserve for the

Joining the other Coordinators, Chairpersons and Executive Secretaries of 16 Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans (RSPs) as well as representatives of relevant multilateral environmental agreements, UN agencies and other organizations, a NOWPAP representative attended the 16th Global Meeting of Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans (GMRS) from 30 September to 1 October 2014 in Athens, Greece. 

2014 NOWPAP International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) was organized in Boryeong, Republic of Korea on 25-26 September 2014.

The annual event comprised a beach cleanup campaign and a workshop on marine litter management. NOWPAP marine litter focal points,  representatives of national and local governments in the NOWPAP member states (China, Korea, Japan and Russia), NOWPAP partners of GPA, PEMSEA and GESAMP, universities, academic institutes and environmental NGOs participated in the event.

Staff members of NOWPAP RCU in Toyama joined school kids, university students and local citizens in beach cleanup on 17 September 2014.  This event was organized by the Northwest Pacific Region Environmental Cooperation Centre (NPEC) as part of their marine litter monitoring programme which has been implemented for several years by Japan, China, Korea and Russia.  The marine litter collected on the beach was sorted and recorded.  The most predominant litter was plastic (more than 80%), followed by polystyrene and then metal.    

NOWPAP Pollution Monitoring Regional Activity Centre (POMRAC) convened its 12th Focal Points Meeting on 4-5 September 2014 in Busan.  POMRAC focal points and experts of Japan, Republic of Korea and Russia as well as representatives of CEARAC and MERRAC attended the meeting.  Representatives of NOWPAP partners - OSPAR, PEMSEA, PICES and YSLME - participated as observers.  The meeting reviewed the activities implemented since the 11th POMRAC Focal Points Meeting and discussed the implementation plans for the POMRAC activities in 2014 and 2015, including

The second State of the Marine Environment Report (SOMER-2) for the NOWPAP region has recently been published. The SOMER-2 has been prepared by NOWPAP POMRAC in collaboration with other three NOWPAP RACs, based on the first State of Marine Environment Report (published in 2007) and taking into account developments in recent years.

The Toyota Environment Activity Fund, the Nippon Foundation and Toyota Foundation were approached by a representative of NOWPAP Regional Coordinating Unit (RCU) in May and June for possible funding of projects to be implemented by experts from the NOWPAP region.

As pledged at the 18th NOWPAP Intergovernmental Meeting, Korea increased its annual financial contribution to the NOWPAP Trust Fund to USD 125,000 (from previous level of USD 100,000). With the continuous efforts made by the NOWPAP member states in the past years, NOWPAP is currently only short of USD 25,000 in meeting the target annual contribution to the Trust Fund of USD 500,000. 

In order to strengthen the relationships with the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA), NOWPAP RCU representative attended the 6th East Asian Seas (EAS) Partnership Council Meeting held on 23-24 June 2014 in Manila, the Philippines. Many NOWPAP activities are contributing to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia adopted in 2003 by PEMSEA countries and NOWPAP has served as a non-country member of the EAS Partnership Council since 2007.

UNEP convened two technical workshops from 30 June to 4 July 2014 in Geneva which a NOWPAP representative attended together with other participants from individual Regional Seas Programmes and relevant international organizations. 

Three of the four NOWPAP regional activity centers (MERRAC, DINRAC and CEARAC) have convened their focal points meetings (FPMs) in June-July 2014 in Daejeon, Korea, Beijing, China, and Toyama, Japan, respectively. While reviewing the activities carried out since their previous FPMs, the focal points of MERRAC, DINRAC and CEARAC discussed and agreed on the implementation plans for the activities and projects to be implemented in 2014-2015 biennium which were approved by the 18th NOWPAP Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) in December 2013. 

For CEARAC:

Initiated by NOWPAP and sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), the project “Impacts of Global Warming on Coastal and Marine Ecosystems in the Northwest Pacific” has been completed recently. Led by Professor Sukgeun Jung from Jeju National University, the experts from China, Japan, Korea and Russia conducted in 2012-2014 retrospective analysis of climate and oceanographic data collected during the past 40 years.

With the support of the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities (GPA), a regional node of the GPML will be co-hosted by the Northwest Pacific Environmental Cooperation Centre (NPEC) and NOWPAP Regional Coordinating Unit (RCU). Based on the networks already established by NPEC and NOWPAP as well as the experience obtained from the implementation of the marine litter related activities, the northwest Pacific GPML regional node is expected to play the following roles:

NOWPAP convened its first Extraordinary Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) on 9-10 April 2014 in Seoul, Republic of Korea to discuss possible measures to address financial sustainability of the NOWPAP Regional Coordinating Unit (RCU) offices in Toyama and Busan. Representatives of member states (China, Korea, Japan and Russia) as well as UNEP Headquarters attended the two-day special meeting which was requested by the chairperson of the 18th NOWPAP Intergovernmental Meeting.

By the end of 2013, several reports have been developed and published by NOWPAP Regional Activity Centers and partners.

The 18th NOWPAP Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) was convened on 4-6 December 2013 in Toyama, Japan. Delegates from NOWPAP member states (China, Japan, Korea and Russia) attended the meeting. Directors of NOWPAP Regional Activity Centres, representatives from UNEP Headquarters and NOWPAP partners (PICES and YSLME) also participated in the meeting. The meeting reviewed the progress of NOWPAP implementation for the last two years and discussed the workplan and budget for the biennium of 2014-2015.

A proposal on organizing a topic session “Marine debris in the Pacific Ocean: sources, transport, fate and effects of macro- and micro-plastics” has been approved by PICES Science Board for the next year PICES Annual Meeting to be held on 17-26 October 2014 in Yeosu, Korea.

Jointly sponsored by NOWPAP and PICES, the Training Course on Remote Sensing Data Analysis was organized on 21-25 October 2013 in Qingdao, China by the NOWPAP Special Monitoring & Coastal Environmental Assessment Regional Activity Centre (CEARAC). With the help of local organizers of the Ocean Remote Sensing Institute of Ocean University of China and the Chinese National Environmental Monitoring Centre (CNEMC) of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the training course was conducted for 23 trainees from China, Japan, Korea, Canada, Cameroon and Oman.

2013 NOWPAP International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) and Workshop on Marine Litter management were successfully organized jointly by the non-profit organization (NPO) Okinawa Ocean Culture and Environment Action Network and NOWPAP Regional Coordinating Unit from 24 to 26 October 2013 in Okinawa, Japan.

The Pollution Monitoring Regional Activity Centre (POMRAC) and Special Monitoring and Coastal Environmental Assessment Regional Activity Centre (CEARAC) have organized respectively their 11th Focal Points Meeting on 9-10 October 2013 in Tianjin, China and on 11-12 September 2013 in Toyama, Japan. Both POMRAC and CEARAC Focal Points and experts reviewed the progresses made since the previous Focal Points Meetings, discussed and agreed on the work plans and budgets for 2014-2015 to be submitted for approval by the 18th NOWPAP Intergovernmental Meeting to be held in December.

NOWPAP representative attended the 15th Global Meeting of Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans (GMRS) held in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 30 September – 1 October 2013. The Second Global Land-Ocean Connections Conference (GLOC-2) was held at the same venue on 2-4 October where work plans of three global partnerships (on marine litter, nutrients and wastewater) were discussed in detail. 

UNEP 2013 Administrative Management Meeting was held on 16-19 September 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya, hosted jointly by UNEP and UNON. This biennial meeting addressed introduction of the new accounting standard, IPSAS (from January 2014), and launch of the new Enterprise Resource Planning system, Umoja (expected in summer 2014). The meeting also covered various issues of finance, legal instruments, human resources, procurement, travel policies, and others.