UNEP ROAP

Scientific stock take for the South China Seas Project
US$32million project to reveal initial findings and demonstration sites

Bangkok, February 10, 2004 - Scientists from countries surrounding the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand meet later this week to review progress in an ambitious US$32 million project designed to reverse degradation of the marine environment.

Two years since its launch, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says the project has generated valuable datasets and research findings, identified agreed priority areas for management trials and set a platform for the regional cooperation that is necessary for effective protection.

Project director John Pernetta says four new booklets on the region's main marine habitat types - coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass and wetlands - will be launched at the project's Regional Scientific Conference, which begins tomorrow.

He cites new data on the economic value of mangroves to Southern China's pearl industry. "Studies show profit from pearl farming adjacent to mangroves was 13.7 times higher than in areas which have been cleared."

Another study in Thailand brought together information on wetlands drawn from 70 projects run by 23 different agencies and combined it together into a single Global Information System (GIS) database useful to planners and managers.

In China previously unknown areas of high quality seagrass meadows have been mapped and in Cambodia the first monitoring of coral reefs was initiated since the civil war.

The project is the largest funded through the Global Environment Facility's International Waters portfolio and the first to unite all the coastal countries of the South China Sea in a marine protection initiative.

More than 40 different Government ministries, national scientific institutions and non-governmental organizations from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam are engaged in the project, and while none are native speakers of English, they use it as their working language.

The project's goal is to address significant problems: over 80 per cent of the area's coral reefs are at risk; only a third of its mangrove forests remain; little is known of its seagrass communities but 20 to 50 percent are thought to be degraded; and two thirds of the major fish species and several of its most important fishing areas are fully or over-exploited. More than 270 million people live in the coastal zones of the participating countries.

Mr Pernetta said information from 140 research sites had been characterized and entered into the project's database managed by the Southeast Asian START Regional Centre to provide a scientific benchmark on the state of the environment and a tool for decision-making.

The project had also employed a participatory approach to the analysis of issues, enabling different community sectors to identify impacts and root causes of problems, to recognize trans-boundary elements and to design a strategic action plan.

The project partners have also agreed to the process that will lead to the selection of nine 'demonstration sites', representative of the region's problems and where resources will be focused for the project's next three-year phase. The decision on the sites will be made by the Project Steering Committee at its meeting in Manila, Philippines at the end of this month.

"The ultimate goal of the project - to put in place a scientifically-based and self-funding programme that reverses the current environmental decline - will need the ownership of all the participating governments and institutions. For that we are building a good foundation," Mr Pernetta said.

The 'Regional Scientific Conference. Reversing Environmental Degradation in the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand' will be held at the Amari Watergate Hotel, Bangkok from February 11-13.

For more information please contact:

Tim Higham, Regional Information Officer, UNEP, Bangkok, phone +66 2 288 2127, mob +66 9 1283803, email higham@un.org.

Or visit the South China Seas Project website on http://www.unepscs.org/