The 13th NOWPAP CEARAC Focal Points Meeting (FPM) was held on 25-26 August 2015 in Toyama, Japan. About 15 people including CEARAC Focal Points from the NOWPAP member states, representatives of NOWPAP RCU and POMRAC as well as representatives of the North-East Asian Subregional Programme for Environmental Cooperation (NEASPEC) and the IOC Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific (WESTPAC) attended the meeting. The meeting participants reviewed the progress and expected outcomes/outputs of CEARAC activities for the 2014-2015 biennium.
Currently CEARAC has been implementing three major activities: pilot assessment on the impacts of major threats to marine biodiversity in the selected sea areas in the NOWPAP region; trial application of the screening procedure of the NOWPAP Common Procedure for eutrophication assessment; and case studies on seagrass mapping in the selected sea areas in the NOWPAP region. Field work of each activity has already done and the national reports have already been submitted to CEARAC. While reviewing the draft image of a regional report and a web-based map, which are under construction by the Secretariat, FPs provided some suggestions on how to compile and reflect the results in the final report and/or map.
Then, the Secretariat presented a workplan of CEARAC activities for the 2016-2017 biennium. For the coming two years, there are two activities to be mainly implemented: development of a draft common procedure for assessment of the impacts of major pressures on marine biodiversity in the NOWPAP region; and feasibility study towards assessment of seagrass distribution in the NOWPAP region, both of which are based on the results of the current activities. During the discussion, the participants expected CEARAC to have more collaboration of information exchange with relevant regional/international organizations in their future activities.
The meeting also reviewed the workplan and adopted it. The workplan will be submitted to the 20th NOWPAP Intergovernmental meeting (IGM) to be held in October in China for approval.
