The
World Commission on Protected Areas
The World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) is one of six commissions of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
History
In 1948, the IUCN established a Committee on National Parks. Two decades later the IUCN had been ...
(WCPA)'s
High Seas
The terms international waters or transboundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water (or their drainage basins) transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regiona ...
Task Force spans decades. It was officially established in 2003 following the Vth
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...
World Parks Congress where marine experts formulated a 10-Year High Seas MPA Strategy. The 10 year Strategy built upon the results of a joint IUCN, WCPA and WWF expert's workshop on high seas MPAs in January 2003: Towards a Strategy for High Seas MPAs
Towards a Strategy for High Seas MPAs
iucn.org
Goal
Their goal is to achieve for the High Seas the fundamental objectives of the 1988 World Conservation Strategy—repeated in IUCN's Guidelines for Marine Protected Area
A marine protected area (MPA) is a protected area of the world's seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity ...
s:
* to maintain essential ecological processes and life support systems;
* to preserve genetic diversity; and
* to ensure the sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems.
Membership
The WCPA High Seas MPA Task Force is co-chaired by Kristina Gjerde, High Seas Policy Advisor for the IUCN, and Alistair Graham, an international policy consultant with WWF and other organizations. The Task Force contains over 20 individual experts from a variety of government agencies, conservation organizations, scientific institutions, universities, and media. These individuals include Graeme Kelleher, Sylvia Earle
Sylvia Alice Earle (born August 30, 1935) is an American marine biologist, oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer. She has been a National Geographic Explorer at Large (formerly Explorer in Residence) since 1998. Earle was the first fem ...
, Elliott Norse, Arlo Hemphill, Jeff Ardron, Dan Laffoley, Sheila Mckenna, Sue Taei and Lisa Speer.
See also
* Natural Resources Defense Council
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States–based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicag ...
References
External links
*{{Official website, 1=http://www.iucn.org/themes/wcpa/biome/marine/highseas/about.html
IUCN commissions
International environmental organizations
Marine conservation organizations
Organizations established in 2003