Here is an update from the CBD Secretariat (Mr. Sarat Babu Gidda) encouraging countries to deliver the commitments and request partners to work in concerted, coherent and collective manner to help countries in delivering their commitments would help reaching the agreed protected area related targets.The CBD Parties not only contributed to reach 5.7% protection of Global Ocean Protection ( 14.4% in case of national waters) they committed the remaining 4.3% to reach 10% global ocean protection target by 2020.The CBD support team worked hard to calculate your commitments which include:National priority actions identified by Parties to the Convention through a series of regional capacity-building workshops carried out in 2015 and 2016;Projects from the fifth and sixth replenishment of the Global Environment Facility (GEF): Only those projects with a status of "project approved" or "concept approved" were considered. GEF projects which are already included in Parties national priority actions are not counted again;Voluntary commitments for The Ocean Conference are initiatives voluntarily undertaken by Parties to the Convention that aim to contribute to the implementation of Target 14.5 of SDG 14 https://oceanconference.un.org/commitments/ as of 30 MayOther large marine protected areas (>100,000 km2) from recently announced national commitments.The Micronesia Challenge which is a commitment by five Micronesian territories to effectively conserve at least 30% of their near-shore marine resources Micronesia by 2020, and the Caribbean Challenge Initiative, involving nine Caribbean governments, aims to effectively conserve and manage at least 20 percent of the marine and coastal environment by 2020Targets from the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) of 36 Parties are included, as is the additional area that will need to be added to meet the target, removing MPAs being added from the other sources above to avoid double counting. Targets submitted by Parties with a deadline later than 2020, or those that did not differentiate terrestrial and marine targets are not included.A Press Release, Flier, Background note in the form of question and answers and net commitment of each country, after removing redundancy and double counting.Please refer to the tabs for links to the sources included in the Master Data file showing the current status of Marine Protected Areas (June 2017 release of WDPA) and net commitment of each country. We have not included (yet) commitments made after 30th May to the Ocean conference ( ex. Portugal commitment to increase another 7% in its national waters #OceanAction18172 ( which accounts above 91,000 Km 2) and Greece"s commitment to increase 14 % of its territorial waters #OceanAction18379 ( which also adds above 90,000 Km2) If these commitments are fulfilled, the world will reach or surpass the 2020 target of 10%, and also meet Target 14.5 of Sustainable Development Goal 14.There is still a need however, to focus on other aspects -representativeness, management effectiveness, governance and equity of marine protected areas.Concerted effort by all is needed to improve effectiveness of MPAsWith more systematic and concerted efforts by all in a coherent manner in next 3 years 7 months, status of other elements of Aichi Target 11 would be reasonably improved.A Target is a rallying Point. It triggers action , when action is underway, it catalyzes further actions. Thus, through concerted efforts by all in a systematic manner, inch by inch, Goals and Targets can be achieved and reached.LET US ALL COME TOGETHER AND STRIVE TO ACHIEVE SDGs AND AICHI TARGETS For more information, please contact Sarat Babu Gidda of the CBD Secretariat ([email protected])
