 During this anniversary for the Marine Affairs Program, I've been requested to talk about UNEP Regional Seas Program as it is being implemented through the Regional Seas conventions, action plans, as well as protocols. It's my intention in the next 30 minutes to cover a wide range of issues, if any. So to begin with, Regional Seas conventions and action plans last year actually celebrated 40th anniversary since the establishment of the program in 1974. And since then, it has become a UNEP flagship program. The program was implemented through regional frameworks for cooperative management and protection of the marine, regional and shared coastal environment, as well as management of the natural resources for sustainable development among states with a shared coast. The program itself also is promoted by UNEP. It has grown over the years. And to date, the program covers 18 regions globally, with over 143 participating countries across 13 regions, all of which make together the entire program of conventions, protocols and action plans, which have been either established by UNEP or negotiated under the UNEP auspices. 13 regions include the Black Sea, the wider Caribbean, the East Asian Seas, the Eastern Africa, the South Asian Seas, the Ropnes Sea area, which includes the coast of Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, the Mediterranean, the Northeast Pacific, the Northwest Pacific, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Eden, the Southeast Pacific and Pacific and Western Africa, all those compose the 13 region. And the map there shows the 18 regional seas regions depicted by different colors. So what are the regional seas action plans? And I've mentioned here action plans, conventions and protocols. What we'll see that the regional seas program is composed of these action plans, conventions and protocols, which have evolved over the years and have had all a common methodology and pattern in their development, followed similar process for their development. As mandated by UNEP governing body, the then governing council, of course now it has changed into United Nations Environment Assembly and using the UNEP's leadership, technical expertise, its catalytic role and convening power. Together with seed funds, UNEP has initiated and supported the entire many consultative negotiation processes for the development of the regional seas action plans. UNEP has ensured that consistent integrated approach was followed in the development of these action plans. They've been safeguarded by the maintenance of an interdisciplinary character of environmental problems in collaboration with other international and regional bodies. UNEP has acted as an overall coordinator and facilitator for the development of all these different instruments under the regional seas program. The regional seas action plan so far include for the Mediterranean, there's Mediterranean action plan, Caribbean action plan, West Africa and Central Africa action plan, East African action plan, Southeast Asia action plan and Northwest Pacific action plan. All these managed by UNEP or administered by UNEP and are all structured in a similar format in terms of content which normally begins with the components of environmental assessments, environmental management, environmental legislation, institutional arrangements and financial arrangements. They are then followed by a strong legal framework in the form of regional cooperation, treaty or convention, which is followed with associated implementing legal binding protocols dealing with specific marine pollution problems. Although majority of the regional seas action plans have led to the development of an umbrella legally binding framework or in the name of conventions and implementing protocols, we have few action plans which have remained at the state of action plan and these are principally the Southeast Asia, the Northwest Pacific, the two are administered by UNEP but there's also the South Asian seas action plan administered by the South Asia Environment Program or SACEP. Of the 13 regions which I'd mentioned earlier on, UNEP administers and manages six regional conventions plus 15 of the total 42 legally binding implementing regional seas protocols. The six conventions plus the two protocols are the Caribbean action plan which was adopted 1981 with a legally binding convention adopted 1983 but with it it has four protocols, one dealing with oil spills protocol 1983, specially protected areas protocol 1990 and pollution from land based sources protocol of 1999. The other action plan is the Eastern African protocol adopted 1985 together with a framework convention which was amended in 2010 and this is the convention on the protection management and development of the marine and coastal environment of the Eastern African region. It has three protocols, one related to protected areas of wild fauna and flora 1985 protocol on combating marine pollution in cases of emergency 1985 and 2010 there was a new protocol on land based sources of marine pollution. Another convention action plan first is for the Western Central African action plan which also has a convention adopted together with an action plan in 1981 with two protocols, a protocol on marine pollution in cases of emergency 1985 and 2012 they adopted a protocol on land based sources of marine pollution. Then we have the Mediterranean action plan which was adopted 1975 but also amended and updated in 1995 and this was followed by a number of protocols namely a protocol related to dumping from ships and aircraft protocol of 1976 amended 1995, also a protocol on oil pollution and other harmful substances adopted 1976 and amended 2002 protocol also amended 1995 on pollution on land based sources of marine protocol LBS as abbreviated, also a protocol on special protected areas and biodiversity protocol, offshore pollution protocol, transboundary movement of hazardous waste protocol and a protocol on integrated coastal zone management. The chart shows basically puts together all the action plans, regional seas conventions plus all the protocols trying to separate those which are administered by UNEP and those which are not administered by UNEP just to be able to give us that growth of the regional seas and action plans. Moving from the action plans, these action plans were adopted by the member states. I've indicated six of them are managed directly by UNEP but they've also established an institutional arrangement to monitor the implementation of those action plans and later of course also monitoring the implementation of the conventions and the protocols. This institutional arrangement for the global convention known as secretaries for the regional seas is referred to as regional coordinating units and UNEP therefore manages six of them for the four legally binding instruments and this is for the East Africa which is the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the West Africa but also two action plans, Northwest Pacific and Southeast Asia. Those ones are action plans but also have regional coordinating units administered by UNEP but then they are hosted by countries in different locations. In addition to these regional coordinating units which is one office for each conventional action plan. In addition to the regional coordinating units all the conventions have also established regional activity centers and these are actually the implementation arm of these conventions and protocols. Each of them have established different locations. They are actually funded by governments and they are considered as national institutions staffed by the nationals of the hosting country although of course they take different activities as approved by the conferences of the parties or intergovernmental meetings of those conventions or the action plans. At national level in addition each party or member state of the convention or the series of action plans are required to establish or designate a national focal point whose role is basically to oversee and monitor and follow up the implementation of these conventions and action plans at national level but also at the same time saving as the channel of communication between the government and the regional coordinating unit. And the table or chart now shows the number of the regional SEAS activity centers which have been established and what you will notice for the Mediterranean they have six of them in each center performing different function. The Northwest Pacific Action Plan has four regional activity centers while the others have only one. All these regional SEAS conventions and action plans plus their protocols are fully integrated into the UNEP regional SEAS program under the regional SEAS program. Program of work of UNEP is approved by its governing body and therefore they actually are completely different and we need to distinguish the regional SEAS conventions and action plans and other global conventions on environment which a number of them are also administered by UNEP. If we look at for instance, Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora or Convention on Migratory Species or the three chemical conventions on prime-formed consent, persistent organic pollutants and trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste. All those are chemicals administered by UNEP global conventions have independent secretariats headed by executive secretaries while for the regional SEAS we have the regional coordinating units headed by coordinators. Hence that difference and the regional SEAS conventions and action plans are fully integrated into the UNEP regional SEAS program which is not the case with the global conventions on environment also administered by UNEP. In addition, we also have regional marine species agreements and memorandum of understanding also administered by UNEP but negotiated under a different framework. While the regional SEAS scope is based on geopolitical boundaries with the four regional marine species agreements and about seven non-legally binding regional SEAS instruments referred to as memorandum of understanding also administered by UNEP but of course they are not based on geopolitical boundaries as the regional SEAS conventions. These are focused on the conservation of specific migratory marine species within a particular marine environment program and they've all been negotiated under a global framework convention on the conservation of migratory species of wild animals also administered by UNEP. If I may give an example of which are these marine species agreements we have four of them legally binding. One is an agreement on the conservation of small cetaceans of the Baltic North East Atlantic Irish and North East North Sea. Another legally binding agreement is the one on cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and the contiguous Atlantic area. Also administered by UNEP but is hosted by the government of Monaco abbreviated Acobams. Another agreement is the one on the conservation of seals in the Warden Sea. Administered and hosted by the government of Germany and then the last fourth one is the agreement on the conservation of albatrosses and petrases administered and hosted by the government of Australia in Tasmania. Then we have a series of about seven memorandum of understanding. Although they are referred to as non-legally binding because they are MOUs or memorandum of understanding but in terms of implementation for all intents and purposes there is no distinction between the legally binding and non-legally binding. Anyway, the MOUs, we have one for the conservation of dugong and their habitats hosted by the government of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates where when MOU on marine turtles of the Atlantic coast of Africa administered directly under the global CMOS or Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals. Then convention for the cetaceans and their habitats of the Pacific region. Another one is the convention on marine turtles and their habitats of the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. MOU on Eastern Atlantic population of the Mediterranean morgue seals and their habitats. The MOU for the migratory sharks and the MOU for the Manete and small cetaceans of Western Africa and Marco, Renesia and their habitats. Why the regional seas program then has created this unique platform of collaboration? We are seeing the regional seas program has successfully provided a mechanism and platform for the countries to share countries which share a common ocean to cooperate and integrate to integrate their natural resource management for the marine and coastal areas. But also the program has proved quite successful as a mechanism and platform for countries sharing common seas and ocean but with different political settings or different political ideology to be able to meet and discuss issues of common interests related to the management and the conservation of the marine environment. Also it has become a unifying factor the regional seas program in terms of bringing all these different countries from different geographical locations, different socioeconomic backgrounds to discuss issues of common interests. But it has also been a viable platform to also support and strengthen the regional cooperation and mechanism for the implementation of other global multilateral environmental agreements. For instance, regional seas conventions and action plans have been instrumental in the implementation of international maritime organization conventions related to marine pollution. Also in terms of implementing the chemical, international chemical conventions as far as chemicals into the ocean are concerned. They're instrumental in terms of implementation of the conventions on the Stockholm Convention in Rotterdam and these two deals with the persistent organic pollutants or prime formed consent or the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Azadus Waste. Also the entire marine biodiversity program of the Convention on Biological Diversity has been key using the regional seas program for the implementation of this marine biodiversity program of the CBD. Equally instrumental for the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the World Heritage Convention as well as the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. And more so, we have a global plan of action for land-based sources of marine pollution also administered by UNEP and also very instrumental in the using the regional seas conventions and action plans for the implementation of this global action plan. And in fact, it has been instrumental in the development of all the protocols which have been developed on the land-based sources of marine pollution. And from the two, the appendix one table we talked earlier on, one we should be able to see there are more protocols on land-based sources of marine pollution than other marine issues. And we can easily relate it then to this global plan of action which has used these conventions effectively for the development of those protocols. Furthermore, the regional seas conventions and action plans have been instrumental in the implementation of GEF focal areas, funded projects, particularly in the portfolio of international waters, marine biodiversity, the marine-related issues for chemicals and land degradation. Equally then, in terms of providing that the intellectual, the political, facilitative leadership and UNEP's funding, particularly SEED funding for their initial development has been instrumental in further strengthening cooperation under the regional seas program which has led to this development of the number of conventions and action plans. Although at the beginning when these conventions and protocols were negotiated under the regional seas program, it was the intention of the governing body of UNEP and UNEP that UNEP will only provide SEED funds and its convening power to have these conventions established with an intention to later hand it over to the parties and the member states themselves to sustain them. However, in practice, that has not been the case for all of the action plans and conventions. Although it has been the case for some, but with the case, for instance, of the Southeast Asia action plan has not been the case. Equally, the East and African action plan as well as the West African action and Central Africa action plan. Only recently, the West African action plan now is slowly becoming independent. It now has its own full-time coordinator as well as a secretariat called Dvoa Abidjan. The Eastern African action plan and its convention referred to as Nairobi Convention hosted by UNEP in Nairobi, also now slowly becoming independent and that the party is taking over full responsibility. But all this is only happening now. The COBSI or the Southeast Asia action plan, that has not been the case. The good thing is, and what the regional seas program has done is to create that systematic pattern which we see in all the conventions all the articles incorporated in all the regional seas conventions have actually followed a similar pattern, similar pattern in terms of the nature of the provisions. Just to give an example, they all have provided articles related to the geographical scope or coverage or the geo that which is based on the geopolitical grounds, the area which the convention covers that marine region. They all have general provisions whereby it requires, for instance it includes provisions like national sovereignty, independence and non-interference into each other's internal affairs or respect for the present or future maritime claims as they are indicated under the law of the Sea Convention 1982. All the conventions also have general obligations whereby member states are expected to undertake certain measures either individually, jointly or regionally or to deal with specific obligations to combat specific types of pollution. And you will see it is these specific types of pollution which are now leading to the increasing number of protocols being developed under a number of these regional seas conventions. And some of the issues which have been specifically mentioned in these articles relate to dumping from ships, land-based sources of pollution and activities, transboundary movement of hazardous waste, biological diversity, threatened and endangered species, establishment of protected areas. And we have seen there are already protocols under certain conventions covering these specific marine pollution. They also covers cooperation among the parties in order to combat specific types of marine pollution or environmental damages and also requiring parties to develop or undertake national administrative measures to put into effect the implementation of the conventions including harmonization of their policies for the effective implementation of these regional seas. We also see all conventions including articles for the development of financial rules. They also include articles related to institutional arrangements. And this is where the questions issues of regional coordinating units, conference of the parties and the bill comes in. They all have provisions related to financial arrangements and support to the implementation of the conventions or the program. They also provide review mechanism processes in terms of requiring the parties or bludging the parties to submit national reports to the conferences of the parties. They establish compliance and enforcement regimes or call for that establishment, but only the Mediterranean Convention or Barcelona Convention actually has established such a mechanism. They all have provisions related to sovereignty, immunity of four ships and states operated under, I mean states operated ships and how then they are not affected by the regional seas conventions and action plans. And then what you'll also notice on these regional seas conventions is those which were adopted after 1992 real conference on United Nations environment and development, as well as those which were amended after 1992 have basically also included general obligations which are included in the agenda 21 or the real principles. So the newer, I will call them the newer conventions or the amended conventions have provisions related to principles of sustainable development, precautionary principle, polluter pays principle, principle 10 related to access to information, justice and decision making, participation in decision making and environmental impact assessment and all those principles under agenda 21. So basically it took into account developments in the field of international environmental law. I've already indicated that all conventions including the action plans do establish a monitoring mechanism in terms of an institutional mechanism in the name of the conference of the parties for the conventions or intergovernmental meetings of the parties for the action plans. If we move to the regional seas protocols which these have been developed to further implement their conventions but looking at specific marine pollution issue, they are equally legally binding and again depending on the subject matter of the protocol, be it either land-based sources of pollution or biodiversity or pollution in cases of emergencies, again just like the convention, the provisions follow the same pattern, follows the same type of articles and provisions. So there is that systematic way of presenting these instruments. But of course the implementation is the one which is unique to each region or each marine environment region. So far a total of 42 protocols do exist related to different issues of marine pollution. Of the 42, 15 are under UNEP administered regional seas conventions and 27 are administered by now other entities apart from UNEP. But we also have few which are still being negotiated and others are already adopted but not yet enforced and all these are shown in the table which we had seen earlier on. Having said all this, what can we conclude to have what has the regional seas program over the last 40 years for which last year we are celebrating has achieved or has succeeded to achieve. One I think we can confidently say the growing number of the regional seas regions we've said 18 with the growing number of participating countries in the regional seas in the participating coastal states currently 143 and the regions making the UNEP regional seas program alone the 13. So this number has grown over the years. In addition, we have seen over the years increasing number of the adopted regional seas and action plans. In total, we have 42 regional seas conventions and action plans. Out of these 42, six of them are administered by UNEP plus 15 regional seas protocols administered by UNEP plus one global plan of action on land-based sources of marine pollution also administered by UNEP. Again, a major achievement. We are also seeing that the regional seas conventions and action plans have successfully provided a viable platform for the countries with different socioeconomic and political ideologies and settings being able to meet and discuss these common marine environmental challenges and to be able to seek common solutions. A major achievement. So it brings countries irrespective of political settings to discuss these common issues which touch upon the life of the population of these coastal states. Another major achievement. We are also looking at the effective institutional mechanism which has been set up under the regional seas conventions and action plans which monitors not just the implementation but the enforcement. They've established the regional seas coordinating units. In addition, they've established the regional activity centers which are responsible for the actual implementation of specific either protocols or overall the convention at regional level. In addition, we have the national focal points which each party, each member states establishes at national level. You put all these together are able to ensure effective implementation and enforcement of the regional seas conventions and protocols. A major achievement. We are seeing all of them have been integrated into a one UNEP regional seas program under one UNEP regional, I mean UNEP program of work. Again, major success. We've also indicated how effectively these conventions and action plans have been used as a mechanism to implement global multilateral environmental agreements like the three chemical conventions, convention on biological diversity, convention on migratory species, the Ramsa Convention on wetlands, the World Heritage Convention as well as the relevant marine pollution instruments under the International Marine Time Organization and more so for the land-based protocols, the global plan of action again being used successful. All these are another major achievement. We have talked of how they've been effective in the execution of GEF funded projects under the relevant GEF portfolio and the systematic pattern of the articles which are in all the conventions and all the protocols which are related to each other and therefore leading to that coherent synergistic implementation. So these are some of the major achievements. To conclude, regional seas program has been implemented through these regional seas conventions and action plans as well as the protocols. They've made great achievements over the last four years as of the existence for the sustainable management of the marine and the coastal resources. Many lessons have been learned over the 40 years. We still continue to learn as the program continues to grow, as it continues to be nurtured despite the challenges faced along the way. But as the program unveils a renewed and re-energized ambition to further enhance and strengthen its implementation, it's important as a prerequisite that political will which will in turn support and ensure the financial base of the program, the solid illegal basis and the sound and effective institutional structure then continues to be able then to maintain this 40 years achievement and to enable the program to continue to grow to the next 40 years and beyond. Thank you very much for listening.