Report on Census of Marine Life Activities at the CBD Conference of the Parties 10Nagoya, Japan
18-29 October 2010
The Census of Marine Life sent a nine person delegation to the CBD COP10 meeting.
Though the meeting lasted for two weeks, the majority of activities regarding the Census
took place 22-24 October, including a side event on Friday October 22. The Census wasalso active in the negotiations on the Marine and Coastal Biodiversity Program of Work,and was highlighted as a non-biased source of scientific information.
Census Side Event & Other Presentations
On Friday 22 October, the Census of Marine Life held its side event from 1:15-2:45.
Shira chaired the session, and gave an introduction. Patricia Miloslavich, Edward VandenBerghe, Pat Halpin and Jesse Ausubel gave presentations. Jesse moderated discussion
with participants at the end. The questions included how to fund future work, remaining
gaps in data under the Census, should OBIS complete an economic analysis to show its
value to individual countries, how the Census can inform human impacts on marine
biodiversity, and how the Census can help the CBD. The room was full with 45-50attendees, and more who wanted to attend, but couldn’t because of space limitations. TheCensus event was one of four side events (out of 40+) reported on that day by the Earth
Negotiations Bulletin: http://www.iisd.ca/biodiv/cop10/enbots/22octe.html. The sideevent was also filmed and played throughout the conference center in the days following
the event: http://webcast.cop10.go.jp/player.asp?id=2302&type=ondemand. On 23-24
October, the East and South East Asia Biodiversity Initiative (ESABII) and NaGISA
hosted an international joint meeting at Nagoya University in commemoration of theCOP10 to bring together near-shore benthic ecologists and taxonomists from Western
Pacific regions. The theme of the conference was Conservation of Marine Biodiversity.
Shira and Jesse gave a welcome, Patricia, Pat, Jesse and Edward gave presentations. A
reception was held Saturday evening, and a dinner on Sunday evening.
On 23 October, Oceans Day was held at the COP10 conference center. Ron O’Dor gave apresentation on the Census of Marine Life and Census was mentioned in several otherpresentations. There were several other opportunities to present Census of Marine Life
information and Ron gave a presentation at a CBD Press Workshop on 24 October.
Although the audience was small, it was well received with an informed question andanswer period. In the afternoon, Jesse gave a Census of Marine Life presentation at theInformal Consultation Meeting on the Global Sustainable Ocean Initiative (GSOI), a
meeting arranged by the CBD Secretariat to promote the development of scientificpartnerships between Japanese marine experts and CBD partners.
The Census of Marine Life also displayed a poster at the COP10 meeting entitled“Making Ocean Life Count: A New Baseline for Policy,” based on the Williams et alpaper published this month in PLoS Biology.
COP10 Negotiations: Marine & Coastal Biodiversity Program of Work
The Census of Marine Life was well represented throughout the negotiations by DanielDunn, and partially Pat Halpin and Heather Mannix. Census partners, the Global Ocean
Biodiversity Initiative (GOBI), through the work of Kristina Gjerde, Jeff Ardon andPatricio Bernal, played a crucial role in not only ensuring the Census of Marine Life and
OBIS text was included in the draft text coming into the meeting, but leading the Census
through the COP10 negotiations.
The negotiations centered on Working Group I - the Marine & Coastal Biodiversity
Program of Work, which had been drafted at previous technical meetings. In the finalversion, the Census of Marine Life is mentioned in paragraph 10, and OBIS in paragraphs
35 & 39. GOBI is also mentioned in paragraph 29. The text encourages parties to theConvention to support and enhance globally networked scientific efforts such as theCensus and OBIS. It also requests the CBD to work with OBIS and other partners toproduce credible, quality controlled scientific information and to collaborate to establisha repository for scientific and technical information related to the identification ofEcologically or Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) in areas beyond nationaljurisdiction. The text of the Working Group I decisions (DocumentUNEP/CBD/COP/10/WG.1/CRP.13) can be found here:
http://www.cbd.int/cop10/insession/?tab=1.
This language effectively sets up a repository and a process for identifying candidate
EBSAs, emphasizing the use of the Census data through OBIS, and GOBI. Oncecandidate EBSAs are identified, they could be used by the UN General Assembly orother governing body to implement management measures to help conserve biodiversity
including the establishment of marine protected areas. The downside is that the processfor submitting EBSAs is nationally controlled, which means it will require politicalmaneuvering to officially identify the areas. Much of the debate on the Marine andCoastal Program of Work was affected by other negotiations going on during theconference, particularly the debate on Access and Benefit Sharing. For the full report on
the COP10 meeting, please see http://www.iisd.ca/download/pdf/enb09544e.pdf.
For more information about the COP10 meeting, please contact Heather Mannix,
hmannix@oceanleadership.org.