Overview: acrowning achievement
For three decades the United Nations Environment Programme
has fostered regional cooperation to address the accelerating
degradation of the world’s oceans and coastal areas.
It has accomplished this by stimulating the creation of
'action plans' – prescriptions for sound environmental
management to be coordinated and implemented by countries
sharing a common body of water.
In most cases, the action plan is underpinned by a strong
legal framework in the form of a regional convention and
associated protocols on specific problems. These legally-binding
documents reflect the commitment and political will of governments
to tackle their common environmental problems.
There are now more than 140 coastal States and Territories
participating in 13 active regional programmes established
under UNEP auspices, with another in development. There
are also five partner programmes.
All these programmes reflect a similar approach, yet each
has been tailored by its own governments and institutions
to suit their particular environmental challenges. They
cover issues ranging from chemical wastes and coastal development
to the conservation of marine life and ecosystems.
The Regional Seas Programme, considered one of UNEP’s
crowning achievements, has demonstrated that environmental
protection can be a profoundly unifying issue. In region
after region, from the Mediterranean to the North-West Pacific,
the pattern is repeated: countries that sometimes agree
on little else can meet at the same table to discuss how
to protect their marine and coastal environment.
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