Geneva / Aktau (Kazakhstan),
15 August 2011 - The five countries bordering
the Caspian Sea have agreed on new commitments
to strengthen regional responses
to oil spills and to improve the way potential
sources of pollution are monitored and managed
across national borders.
The agreements were
made as high-level government representatives
of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Islamic Republic
of Iran, Russian Federation, Republic of
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan met in Aktau,
Kazakhstan, last week, for the Third Meeting
of the Conference of the Parties (COP 3)
to the Tehran Convention.
The Convention is a
legally-binding agreement signed by all
five Caspian states on the environmental
protection of the Caspian region, to which
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
provides the Secretariat.
Two new Protocols are
set to be added to the Tehran Convention
following the meeting in Aktau.
The adoption of the
Protocol Concerning Regional Preparedness,
Response and Cooperation in Combating Oil
Pollution Incidents by the five Caspian
states marks a historic milestone in their
determination to protect and preserve the
Caspian Sea environment against the threats
posed by oil pollution.
Once ratified by the
parties to the Tehran Convention, the Protocol
will see the introduction of an emergency
response system for dealing with oil pollution
incidents.
As a significant source
of oil and gas, the Caspian region has become
the focus of economic interest and political
attention in recent years. Despite the wealth
that this oil boom has brought to the region,
it also carries environmental threats for
the Caspian Sea.
Over the last two decades,
the Sea has become increasingly exposed
to the risk of pollution from oil and gas
exploration, exploitation and transport.
Each year, the transportation of oil or
oil products accounts for around 10,000
shipping movements in the region.
The five countries acknowledge
that the effective management and protection
of the Caspian Sea's natural resources can
only be achieved through joint cooperation
between all states with the engagement of
the private sector, particularly the oil
and gas industry..
The countries have reached
an agreement in principle on the text of
a Protocol on environmental impact assessment
in a trans-boundary context in the framework
of the Convention. The Protocol will introduce
common rules for countries to assess any
planned activities that are likely to cause
significant adverse effects on the marine
environment of the Sea. It will also require
countries to notify one another of such
activities.
"Improving knowledge
about potential environmental impacts is
the very backbone of international environmental
cooperation and good inter-state relationships"
said UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP
Executive Director Achim Steiner during
the Tehran Convention meeting in Aktau.
"Addressing concerns
related to potential adverse environmental
trans-boundary impacts is the best recipe
for preventing such impacts and safeguarding
peace and stability", he added.
The Caspian Sea is the
largest enclosed body of water on Earth
and sustains the livelihoods of over 15
million coastal inhabitants. Due to its
isolation from the world's oceans for thousands
of years, the Caspian Sea has formed a highly
valuable ecosystem with unique biodiversity
and a marine area rich in natural resources.
Recognizing the pressing
need to share responsibility in preserving
and protecting the region's environment
and natural resources, the Caspian states
ratified the Tehran Convention in 2006,
as the first legally-binding agreement between
the five countries that border the sea.
UNEP's Regional Office
for Europe provides Secretariat services
to the Convention in close cooperation with
the UN Development Programme / Global Environment
Facility (UNDP/GEF) project "The Caspian
Sea: Restoring Depleted Fisheries and Consolidation
of a Permanent Regional Environmental Governance
Framework", also known as CaspEco.
Note to editors:
These protocols were
developed in close cooperation with the
International Maritime Organization (IMO)
and the Secretariat of the Espoo Convention.
+ More
Horn of Africa Drought
Needs Long Term Solutions
The Horn of Africa is
in the middle of its worst drought in more
than 60 years following two seasons with
no rains that have led to crop failures,
widespread loss of livestock, and rising
food prices in parts of Ethiopia, Kenya,
Djibouti, Somalia and Uganda. The situation
is now dire with over 11 million people
requiring life-saving assistance throughout
the region.
As the humanitarian
community works to save lives in the areas
affected, the need for sustainable solutions
to prevent a reoccurance of this situation
in the medium and long-term is becoming
increasingly apparent.
"The first and
most pressing challenge is to provide food,
water and other essentials to the people
affected," said Nick Nuttall, spokesperson
for the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP). "But addressing some of the
root causes must also be part of the eventual
solution," he added.
Myriad factors have
contributed to this crisis, with climate
change challenges being among them. The
region is clearly experiencing at first
hand the human consequences of climate change
and understanding the link between climate
change and development is particularly crucial
in Africa, where agriculture and other climate-sensitive
sectors are the mainstay of local economies.
This is not the first
time that drought has ravished the region.
However, prior to the 1970s, extreme climate
conditions, such as El Nino, occurred every
10-20 years, which enabled local communities
to find coping measures to deal with the
impact. But climate change is now eroding
these coping measures by causing climatic
extremes with greater frequency and intensity.
Since 2001, consecutive dry spells in some
areas of Africa have led to serious food
shortages in many countries.
Investing in the restoration
and maintenance of the Earth's ecosystems
- from forests and mangroves to wetlands
and river basins - can have a key role in
countering climate change as well as climate-proofing
vulnerable economies. According to a joint
study in 2006 by UNEP and the World Agroforestry
Centre on climate change and the impacts
and adaptation strategies on agriculture
in southern Africa, a number of adaptation
measures were cited to tackle the extreme
weather events like droughts and floods
that come with climate change. Rainwater
harvesting, improved crop varieties and
climate forecasts as well as forestation
were just some cost-effective measures.
The availability of
drinking water is of crucial importance
in these vulnerable communities. UNEP has
been at the forefront of supporting the
restoration of Kenya's Mau forest, which
is one of Sub-Saharan Africa's largest closed
canopy forest and the source of the Yala
and Nyando rivers which feed Lake Victoria,
provide drinking water and support 5,000
hectares of rice production important for
local food security. Decades of deforestation
of this single most important water catchment
in the Rift Valley and western Kenya have
had devastating effects on the country,
including severe droughts and floods which
in turn have led to loss of human lives
and livelihoods, crops and livestock. Major
steps have now been taken to rehabilitate
the Mau and in February a multi-million
Euro project to assist in the restoration
of the complex was announced by the European
Union, UNEP and the Government of Kenya.
In Ethiopia, UNEP is
partnering with the UN Development Programme
(UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) to help introduce new policies that
will assist pastoralists in managing climate
change risks and shocks in six districts.
The CC DARE programme, jointly implemented
by UNEP and UNDP, is providing timely-targeted
support to nine nationally driven projects,
with most of them linked to the agricultural
sector and thereby addressing food security,
in an effort to speed up the integration
of climate risk consideration into policy
and national planning to curb vulnerability
to climate impacts.
In the Horn of Africa,
UNEP has collaborated with UNICEF in water
resource management that includes assessments
of groundwater resources and formation of
water councils to help improved drought
resilience and water security. Sharing the
lessons learned and gained from such projects
will no doubt find an audience among the
many people currently impacted by the drought.
"These illustrative
projects underline that some communities
are trying to build resilience and reduce
vulnerability in the face of accelerating
environmental change including climate change,"
said Mr. Nuttall.
"Scaling these
up and accelerating their implementation
more widely could prove to be among the
keys to a more sustainable and stable future
for millions of people in the region,"
he added.
