The ocean plays a key role in the lives of the people of Romblon, providing food and livelihoods to its communities. (PEMSEA / Michael Villanueva)

 

Attendees of the first Romblon Sustainable Development Council meeting
The inaugural meeting of the Romblon Sustainable Development Council. (PEMSEA / Michael Villanueva)

 

Critically endangered species like the hawksbill turtle call Philippine coral reefs home. (PEMSEA / John Andrew Cabiles)

 

Visit eascongress2018.pemsea.org to register for the sixth EAS Congress

Themed  “Celebrating 25 Years of Action for Biodiversity”, today’s International Day for Biological Diversity highlights progress made since the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) came into force on 29 December 1993.

 

Saving biological diversity from natural and human-induced decline requires concerted effort at every level. Such action can take place at the highest levels, such as the CBD which is a global effort of 196 nations, but it can similarly take place on any level, down to the local and even the personal.

 

Iloilo City has been chosen as the venue for the upcoming East Asian Seas Congress 2018 to be held on November 27 to 30 at the Iloilo Convention Center (ICC). Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor Sr. said that it is a great privilege to be the host city for the upcoming Congress as the ICC’s state of the art facilities has been “home to congregations that encourage dialogues towards sustainable development and bridging potential collaborations towards the future of the East Asian Seas region.”

 

June 5th is World Environment Day and PEMSEA (11 country partners, 22 non-country partners and secretariat) is proud to have been working for 25 years towards a shared vision of a healthy coastal and marine environment in the Seas of East Asia!

Join us for the East Asian Seas Congress 2018 to celebrate 25 years of partnership, learning, innovation and transformational change and usher in an era of concrete actions aligned with the key principles of the global ocean agenda. http://eascongress2018.pemsea.org/ #SeasAsOne

 

MANILA, PHILIPPINES—On June 8, international celebrations will mark World Oceans Day, an annual commemoration to honor, protect, conserve and sustain the world’s oceans. PEMSEA (Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia) is one of the many organizations supporting global efforts towards sustainable oceans. PEMSEA’s interest in investing its technical resources and energy towards safeguarding the world’s oceans lies in its firm belief that oceans are vital to the economy and our way of life.

 

There could be more plastics than fish in the oceans by 2050 (PEMSEA / Gregorio Dantes Jr.)

 

Plastics were first conceived as an alternative material to scarce natural resources, such as ivory from wild elephants. Only a century later, this amazing breakthrough solution has become a tremendous problem, and nowhere is it as damaging as in our oceans.

 

Plastics by the Numbers

 

A mangrove nursery in the village of Patramanggala