Regional Programme Director Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA) What is PEMSEA?

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and executed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The project focuses on environmental management for the Seas of East Asia which is composed of six large marine ecosystems (LMEs), viz. the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, South China Sea, Sulu-Celebes Sea, Indonesian Seas and Gulf of Thailand. It has major river systems draining into the regional seas with a combined watershed of 6.25 million km2 (Fig. 1 A). PEMSEA evolved as a regional project (1994–1999) on marine pollution prevention and management under the GEF pilot phase with the participation of 11 countries in the region and a budget of US$8 million. Its second phase (1999–2006), now with 12 member countries, focused on building intergovernmental, interagency and multisectoral partnerships in environmental management for the seas of East Asia. It has a total GEF contribution of US$16.2 million. Towards the end of the 2nd phase, the countries of Myanmar, Lao PDR and Timor-Leste joined PEMSEA, making a total membership of 15, viz. China, DPR Korea, Japan and RO Korea in the north and the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) and Timor-Leste in the south, covering a total sea area of 7 million km2 and a total coastline of 234,000 km. Building upon its current structure, PEMSEA is in the process of transforming into a longer term regional arrangement to implement a regional marine strategy, the Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia (SDS-SEA), with GEF financial support and significant co-financing from the participating countries beginning 2007. The Challenges The East Asian Seas Region, like many regional seas in other parts of the world, faces the following challenges: First, governance issues confronting the sustainable use of goods and services and environmental sustainability in the seas of East Asia are very complex due to the very high population pressure (with 1 billion people living near the coasts), the wide range of economic activities in the coasta