Marine environment

Although there is a common agreement on the importance of conservation of Mediterranean submarine canyons amongst international organizations, their governance is complex: the canyons' extension covers waters and seabeds under various types of jurisdictions (territorial waters, Fisheries Protection Zone, Ecological Protection Zone, including delimitation issues).

This report focuses on the outlook for the development of existing and new economic activity in the Arctic marine region, and on a range of different sectors.

This document summarizes discussions that were held during a workshop in December 2011 and which focused on making progress on the identification of Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas for seamounts in the high seas.

Of the current 750 marine and coastal protected areas that have been created in the Mediterranean, two thirds of these are along the northern coast of the sea. Therefore important habitats along the eastern and southern coast are under-represented. The Mediterranean Representative Areas and Species (MedRAS) project aims at identifying priority habitats and species in these under-represented areas to be managed and protected. The focus of the present report is on Libya.

The aim of this guideline is to aid maritime administrators, or other lead agencies working with ballast water management, to assess and quantify (as appropriate and possible) the potential economic consequences of unintended marine species introductions.

The goal of this toolkit is to help promote environmental stewardship and increase awareness of marine and coastal ecosystems among schoolchildren in Asia through the use of creative, investigative approaches. Investigative approaches allow schools to make the local environment relevant and interesting to children in coastal communities and help to reinforce the need for wise and sustainable management of our coastal and marine resources.