A New Step Forward in the International Recognition of ACCOBAMS

Ms. Descroix-Comanducci, Executive Secretary of the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area (ACCOBAMS), and Mr. Ibrahim Thiau, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme©ACCOBAMS

On Thursday 11 February 2016, in Athens, as part of a ministerial conference, Ms. Descroix-Comanducci, Executive Secretary of the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area (ACCOBAMS), signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Mr. Ibrahim Thiau, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Under the terms of this agreement, regular dialogue is established with the Secretariat of the Barcelona Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean, on issues of political cooperation, such as the protection of marine areas in zones beyond national jurisdiction, and interaction with fishing and human activities that create threats for cetaceans, as well as other more technical issues.  In particular, ACCOBAMS is confirmed in its leading role in the Ecosystem Approach of the Barcelona Convention, not only with regard to populations of cetaceans as indicators of the state of the marine environment, but also the impact of noise nuisances, which are known to have become one of the major concerns in the conservation of the living resources of our oceans.

These same subjects have, moreover, led the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to invite the Executive Secretary of ACCOBAMS to take part in the forthcoming meeting of its Preparatory Committee on the occasion of the next United Nations General Assembly.

 Currently, the ACCOBAMS Secretariat is helping to strengthen synergies between the relevant organisations involved in managing the biodiversity of the Mediterranean by means of the implementation of a formal alliance between the Barcelona Convention's Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (RAC/SPA), the FAO's General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the network of marine protected areas of the Mediterranean (MedPAN).  The aim of this alliance is to establish effective coordination for the implementation of management measures and protected areas, in particular in areas of the high seas and the deep seabeds of the Mediterranean.

ACCOBAMS will celebrate its official 20^th anniversary at a conference of its member States to be held next November in the Principality.  In particular, this conference will focus on a major campaign to assess the populations of cetaceans in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and the Atlantic area of the Iberian coast.  This campaign is due to take place in 2017 and will require the simultaneous involvement of many scientific teams from member States.

For further information, see www.accobams.org