UNEP’s Regional Seas Programme plays a crucial role in safeguarding marine biodiversity and ecosystems. By protecting diverse habitats such as mangroves, coral reefs, and deep-sea environments, the Programme fosters resilience and sustainability across global and regional marine ecosystems. Through strategic partnerships, policy integration, and community engagement, the Programme drives effective conservation efforts, ensuring that marine ecosystems can support both current and future generations.
Introduction
Marine and coastal ecosystems are pivotal to global biodiversity, supporting billions by providing food, coastal protection, and economic opportunities. However, these ecosystems face significant threats from human activities, climate change, and pollution. Through its Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans (RSCAPs), Regional Seas programme facilitates comprehensive strategies to conserve marine biodiversity and ensure the sustainable use of ocean resources, essential for both ecological health and human well-being.
Why It Matters
Oceans sustain life on Earth, offering vital ecosystem services like climate regulation, food security, and biodiversity. The pressures of overexploitation, habitat destruction, and climate impacts increasingly threaten these benefits. Protecting marine biodiversity is crucial not only for maintaining ecological balance but also for supporting the economies and livelihoods of communities worldwide, particularly in regions dependent on marine resources. In our ever-evolving quest to safeguard marine ecosystems, protect important habitats, and sustainably manage human activities such as fishing, shipping, tourism etc, the adoption of area-based management approaches has emerged as a pivotal approach. At present, a wide variety of area-based management approaches are in use, each with their own purpose, mandate, guiding authority or application guidance. Some approaches focus on the management of individual maritime sectors operating in a specific area, such as fisheries closure areas, pollution management zones, and seabed mining exclusion areas. Other approaches, such as Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM), seek to coordinate and balance the needs of several types of activity within the same area.
What We Do
The Regional Seas Programme, collaborates with Contracting Parties, partners, scientific communities, civil societies, indigenous people, local communities and the youth to protect and manage marine and coastal biodiversity via targeted protocols and area-based conservation measures:
- Mangroves and Coral Reefs: Initiatives like the Nairobi Convention's Mangrove Ecosystem Restoration Guidelines and the Global Coral Reef Partnership, and COBSEA Secretariat’s Green Fins initiatives underline efforts to restore and conserve critical habitats that buffer against climate impacts and support marine life.
- Seagrass Beds and Algal Communities: UNEP supports the conservation of seagrasses and algae, which are vital for carbon sequestration and serve as nurseries for marine species, as highlighted during World Seagrass Day.
- Deep Sea and Pelagic Habitats: Programs under conventions like OSPAR address the protection of biodiversity in deep-sea and open-ocean environments, focusing on vulnerable marine ecosystems threatened by industrial activities.
- Integrated Coastal Zone and Marine Spatial Planning: Efforts under the Barcelona and Nairobi Convention’s WIO Symphony tool for MSP facilitate sustainable coastal development, balancing ecological protection with economic activities.
Selected examples to exemplify the Regional Seas work with regards to biodiversity & ecosystems
- SPREP’s Pacific Ecosystem Based Adaptation to Climate Change projects in Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu incorporate much of the thinking behind GBF Target 7. The Pacific Islands Regional Marine Species Programme (Marine Species Programme, or PIRMSP) is a regional strategy for the cooperative conservation and management of dugongs; marine turtles; whales and dolphins; sharks and rays; and seabirds.
- Abidjan Convention: The Calabar Protocol on Sustainable Mangrove Management.
- Mediterranean Action Plan: Aims to protect marine and coastal environments through specific protocols that address biodiversity conservation and combat pollution.
- COBSEA’s Marine and Coastal Ecosystems Framework: Enhances the management of marine and coastal environments in the East Asian Seas, promoting an integrated Sustainable Blue Economy approach to marine spatial planning, marine protected areas, OECMs, and habitat conservation.
- Caribbean Environment Programme (CEP): Focuses on the conservation of marine biodiversity through the SPAW Protocol, supporting the protection and management of key species and habitats.
AREA BASED MANAGEMENT (ABM)
Area-based management (ABM) has emerged as a vital strategy in marine conservation efforts, emphasizing the importance of regulating human activities within specific geographical regions to protect and sustain marine ecosystems. It recognizes the interconnectedness of marine ecosystems and aims to balance the needs of various stakeholders while protecting the environment and enables the application of management measures to a specific marine area to achieve a desired policy outcome.
Many of the Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans (RSCAPs) include articles or action items related to the conservation and protection of globally or regionally important biological diversity or ecosystems. Some conventions have legally binding protocols on specially protected areas and marine biodiversity. In the Mediterranean, nineteen countries have prepared a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which includes a dedicated section on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Some RSCAPs have also developed MPA guidelines and action plans to protect marine and coastal environments. Additionally, many regional seas have dedicated activity centres and technical groups that support area-based protection activities.
Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans (RSCAPs) have been key in promoting the designation and implementation of :
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Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)
The RSCAPs play an important role in supporting the designation and effective management of MPAs by promoting the exchange of information and best practices and providing access to and mobilizing vital technical and financial resources. They also provide a mechanism through which different marine users can convene and communicate individual priorities and objectives. That enables the development of appropriate MPA designation and management practices that enable sustainable use and conservation.
RSCAPs and MPAs
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SPREP – In 2020, a new Framework for Nature Conservation and Protected Areas in the Pacific Islands Region 2021-2025 was produced and adopted.
- Barcelona Convention
- The Contracting Parties have established a growing network of 1,233 Marine Protected Areas and other area-based conservation measures in the Mediterranean, including 39 Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance (SPAMIs). (As of 2020)
- Assessment of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Mediterranean was published in 2022.
- Cartagena Convention
- In 1997 the Caribbean Marine Protected Area Management Network and Forum (CaMPAM) was created under the auspices of the Specially Protected Area and Wildlife (SPAW) Protocol of the Cartagena Convention. This initiative brings together MPA researchers, administrators, managers, and educators from governmental entities and non-governmental organizations as well as the private sector in an inclusive network to exchange ideas and lessons learned through a variety of mechanisms.
- Nairobi Convention - the Marine Protected Area outlook for the Western Indian Ocean, documents progress made by the countries in the region towards the achievement of SDG 14.5 and provides lessons and opportunities to increase momentum for achieving post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework targets.
- PERSGA
- The signing of the Protocol Concerning the Conservation of Biological Diversity and the Establishment of Protected Areas by PERSGA member states in December 2005 was provided a regionally coordinated approach to establishment PERSGA’s MPAs Network.
- Has established a regional network of MPAs in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden through a regional protocol that has strengthened relationships between countries Three MPAs in the network have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites
- COBSEA
The COBSEA Strategic Directions 2023-2027 and the COBSEA Marine and Coastal Ecosystems (MCE) Framework targets the establishment of a network of MPAs in the East Asian Seas. UNEP MPAth, MPA Toolkit and Learning Platform can be used by COBSEA in assisting COBSEA participating countries in improving the management of existing MPAs and/or in preparation for upcoming MPAs.
- OSPAR - The environment ministers of the North-East Atlantic countries – the Contracting Parties to the OSPAR Convention agreed on October 2021 in Cascais, Portugal on the establishment of the new marine protected area. The area covered is the size of Germany and the United Kingdom combined and will provide protection for seabirds. The high-seas marine protected area NACES (North Atlantic Current and Evlanov Seamount) covers almost 600,000 square kilometres and thus is one of the largest protected areas of the world.
- Abidjan Convention
- The Protocol on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) with a draft of an additional protocol on MPAs and a regional guideline for MPA (marine protected areas) management including knowledge sharing on monitoring and surveillance. The decision on the governance of marine and coastal areas within the Abidjan Convention and the implementation through the development of a Regional Environmental Auditing Guidelines on coastal tourism and supporting countries to develop their national management action plan.
- Côte d’Ivoire in December 2020 designated its first Marine Protected Area in Grand-Bereby a coastal town of San-Pedro the with the support of Abidjan Convention.
- The Abidjan Convention is collaborating with the Regional Network of Marine Protected Areas in West Africa to build capacity to support protected area designation and management.
- Permanent Commission of South Pacific - Activities related to marine and coastal protected areas are framed in the Protocol for the Conservation and Administration of Coastal and Marine Protected Areas of the Southeast Pacific. For the implementation of the aforementioned protocol, in 1992 the Regional Network of Coastal and Marine Protected Areas in the Southeast Pacific was established.
- HELCOM – In 2016, HELCOM published the Ecological coherence assessment of the Marine Protected Area network in the Baltic Sea.
- CPPS has helped implement the south-east Pacific regional network of marine and coastal protected areas.
- NOWPAP launched the North-East Asia MPAs network in collaboration with the North-East Asian Subregional Programme for Environmental Cooperation, and carried out a Summary on Marine and Coastal Protected Areas in the NOWPAP Region, compiling information on 87 MPAs.
- ROPME - Increased regional collaboration supported by ROPME has helped stakeholders to leverage funding, pool knowledge and expertise, share best practices and jointly address common challenges related to MPAs.
- PAME - Has developed a framework for a pan-Arctic network of MPAs to support an ecologically coherent network.
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Integrated Coastal Zone Management / Integrated Coastal Management
Integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) is a dynamic, multidisciplinary and iterative process to promote sustainable management of coastal zones. It covers the full cycle of information collection, planning, decision making, management and monitoring of implementation. ICZM uses the informed participation and cooperation of all stakeholders to assess the societal goals in a given coastal area, and to take actions towards meeting these objectives. It seeks, over the long-term, to balance environmental, economic, social, cultural and recreational objectives, all within the limits set by natural dynamics.
ICZMs/ICMs in the RSCAPs
- Barcelona Convention – “Integrated Coastal Zone Management Protocol”. The Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the Mediterranean, (ICZM Protocol) was adopted in 2008 and entered into force in 2011. The ICZM Protocol provides the legal framework for the integrated management of the Mediterranean coastal zone. The Contracting Parties adopted in 2012 the Action Plan for the implementation of the ICZM Protocol.
- Nairobi Convention – “Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Protocol for the Western Indian Ocean”. The ICZM Protocol serves as a framework to promote regional and national integrated coastal zone management and foster cooperation for sustainable development and ocean governance in the Western Indian Ocean region.
- Abidjan Convention - Pointe Noire Protocol on integrated coastal zone management . The Integrated Coastal Zone Management protocol, when it comes into force will promote integrated planning and coordinated development of the coastal zone including insular belts and river basins and will seek to maintain the integrity of insular belts, coastlines, and river basins for the benefit of present and future generations.
- HELCOM - Integrated Coastal Zone Management has been implemented in the Baltic Sea during the last 20 years. The Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Environmental Action Programme (JCP) by HELCOM (1992-2012) included development of Integrated Coastal Zone Management Plans for five coastal lagoons and wetlands, four of which were transboundary; HELCOM Recommendation 24/10 “Implementation of Integrated Marine and Coastal Management of Human Activities in the Baltic Sea Area“ , adopted by Contracting Parties to the Helsinki Convention in 2003 (currently under revision); Eight Baltic Sea countries implement EU Recommendation on Integrated Coastal Zone Management from 2002.
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Marine Spatial Planning (MSP)
Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is a public process of analyzing and allocating the spatial and temporal distribution of human activities in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic and social objectives that have been specified through a political process.
MSP in the RSCAPs
- Nairobi Convention - A Strategic Framework for Marine Spatial Planning in the Western Indian Ocean. The main purpose of regional strategic framework is to support the region to address transboundary and cross-sectoral marine management challenges, with a focus on MSP as an approach to promote a healthy social-ecological system for the coasts and seas of the WIO.
- NOWPAP – “Regional guidelines for integrated coastal planning and management”. The objective guidelines is to assist member states in applying efficient Integrated Coastal Area and River Basin Management (ICARM) methodologies and best practices including coastal area and river basin planning (landscape, urban and marine spatial).
- COBSEA - COBSEA’s Strategic Directions and the COBSEA MCE Framework have identified Marine and Coastal Spatial Planning (MCSP) as a way to balance the use of marine space and resources in the region by integrating economic and social activities in ecosystem conservation. COBSEA has been providing regional training and capacity building efforts on MCSP, shall continue these efforts and further conduct exchange of knowledge amongst the participating countries and improve regional capacity on the development and implementation of MCSP to achieve Kunming-Montreal GBF Target 1.
- HELCOM - The Vision and Strategies around the Baltic Sea (VASAB) & HELCOM, have been mandated by the coastal countries to jointly coordinate of Marine Spatial Planning at the whole sea basin scale. These two regional and intergovernmental organisations established the HELCOM-VASAB Marine Spatial Planning working group in 2010 for this purpose.
- Abidjan Convention decision on establishing Marine Spatial Planning by drafting of a regional guideline on MSP, collaboration with IOC-UNESCO on the MSPGlobal2 Project, the transboundary MSP between Benin and Togo, and assisting technically Togo to define the pathways of the MSP process through WACA ResIP.
- The China State Oceanic Administration (SOA) undertook a collaborative programme with Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA) in 1994, to implement an Integrated Coastal Zone Management programme. The programme consisted of four phases (Phase I 1994-1999, Phase II 2000-2006, Phase III 2009-2013, Phase IV 2014-2018) in 20 coastal cities, after which Integrated Coastal Zone Management was implemented in Xiamen city, Fujian Province.
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Large Marine Ecosystem (LMEs)
Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) are relatively large areas of ocean space of about 200,000 km2 or more, adjacent to the continents in coastal waters and extending out seaward to the break or slope of the continental shelf or out to the seaward extent of a well-defined current system along coasts lacking continental shelves. LMEs are characterized by their unique undersea topography, current and water mass structure, marine productivity, and food chain interactions.
Globally, the world’s oceans have been divided into 66 large marine ecosystems (LMEs).
LMEs provide direct services approaching US$3 trillion annually, with a non-market value estimated at $US22 trillion each year.
The GEF support has been key in supporting multiple countries to collaborate on strategic, long-term ocean governance of transboundary resources for sustainable development of LMEs. The International Waters focal area has invested US$285 million, leveraging US$1.14 billion in financing from other partners. With GEF support, at least 124 countries are now working together on shared large marine ecosystems.
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Locally Managed Marine Area (LMMA)
A Locally Managed Marine Area (LMMA) is an area of nearshore waters and its associated coastal and marine resources that is largely or wholly managed at a local level by the coastal communities, land-owning groups, partner organizations, and/or collaborative government representatives who reside or are based in the immediate area. Establishment of an LMMA enables communities to make decisions on which fishing methods and other activities can or cannot be carried out in their waters. Typically, a community also designates a portion of their marine area as a no-take zone where no fishing is allowed, providing additional protection and an increase of marine life in many cases,.
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Fisheries closure
Periodic closures involve temporarily banning the harvesting of marine resources in specific areas. Establishing temporary fishery closures in an area can temporarily remove the most direct pressure from fishing to subtidal benthic invertebrates, and provide relief to impacted populations, which are, in theory, able to recover over time during the temporary closure. Temporary closures can include: 1) seasonal closures, often done with the aim of protecting adults during the spawning season or to protect juveniles during times of recruitment or settlement, 2) rotational closures during which areas are alternately closed and opened to fishing following a specific timing, or 3) move-on rules whereby temporary closure of a fished area occurs when a catch or by-catch threshold is reached.
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Marine Conservation Agreements (MCAs)
MCAs are defined as any formal or informal contractual arrangement that aims to achieve coastal conservation goals in which one or more parties (usually right-holders) voluntarily commit to taking certain actions, refraining from certain actions, or transferring certain rights and responsibilities in exchange for one or more other parties (usually conservation-oriented entities) voluntarily committing to deliver explicit (direct or indirect) economic incentives.
MCAs can be entered into by governments, communities, private entities, and private individuals. They are based on agreed upon terms and conditions, are often bottom-up approaches, and include quid-pro-quo incentives wherein all parties receive benefits.
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Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem (VMEs)
VMEs are groups of species, communities or habitats that are highly susceptible to damage from bottom trawling, deep-sea mining, oil and gas exploration, and other extractive activities due to their sensitivity and slow recovery rate. VMEs include features such as seamounts, hydrothermal vents and cold-water coral and sponge habitats
VMEs in the RSCAPs
CCAMLR
- In 2007 Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) implemented a comprehensive measure to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs), recognising the 2006 UN General Assembly Resolution 61/105 on this issue. VMEs include features such as seamounts, hydrothermal vents and cold-water coral and sponge habitats. The measure applies to all high-seas areas of the Convention Area and requires an assessment of the impact of activities on VMEs, and the development of measures to reduce these impacts.
- In 2007, CCAMLR implemented a comprehensive measure to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) recognising the 2006 UN General Assembly Resolution 61/105 on this issue. The measure applies to all high-seas areas of the Convention Area and requires an assessment of the impact of activities on VMEs, and the development of measures to reduce these impacts
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Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs)
The Black Sea Commission and the Tehran Convention Secretariats have worked together with their Parties on the description of EBSAs in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea.
