Proceedings of the workshop onLarge Marine Ecosystems: An engine for achieving SDG 14 (EASC2018 Session 4 Workshop 4)
PUBLICATION DATE:
Friday, November 30, 2018
PUBLICATION TYPE:
Meeting Documents
STATUS:
Only Available Online
DESCRIPTION:
In 1995, the Global Environment Facility adopted the concept of Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) — the majority of which are transboundary — as a conceptual and biogeographic framework for promoting sustainable, ecosystem-based management of the world’s oceans and coasts. The LME approach promotes the creation of new and/or reformed institutions, the reform and implementation of marine resource and environmental management policies and legislation, and the leveraging of public and private sector investment for LME restoration and protection. At a regional scale, the GEF has supported 23 of the 66 recognized Large Marine Ecosystems in which multiple countries collaborate on strategic, long-term ocean governance of transboundary resources.
The Yellow Sea, South China Sea, East China Sea, Sulu-Celebes, Indonesian Sea, Bay of Bengal and Gulf of Thailand are seven LMEs of great ecological and economic importance to the region. The relationships developed through shared project implementation and coordination enables various LME partnerships to help countries incorporate the various SDG14 targets into existing dialogue and policy. Moreover, the forum provided by LMEs encourages important dialogues, emphasizes the exchange of experience and results, provides a focus to scale up existing investments, and catalysis resources towards the achievement of SDG14 targets.
Drawing on the LME experience, this partnership hub not only offered a brief introduction to the Asian LME portfolio in the context of SDG14, but more importantly it highlighted proven approaches that have succeeded in reversing and reducing impacts using integrated ecosystem-based approaches to sustainable ocean and coastal management at both a local and multi-country scale.
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