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OCEAN AND ISLANDS
OCEAN AND ISLANDS PROGRAMME
To improve scientific knowledge of ocean and island ecosystems for the sustainable management of natural resources
Race Against Time as the Deadline to claim Extra Seabed Resources draws closer
With only one year remaining to the May 2009 deadline, eight pacific island countries are beginning to feel the pressure to complete their submissions to the United Nations to claim extra ocean space.
Fiji along with Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga and Papua New Guinea have a credible claim to a combined area of more than 1.5 million square kilometers of additional seabed resources beyond their current 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
This is being made possible under Article 76 of the International Law of the Sea known as the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
These countries are currently faced with the costly and complex work of data identification, collection, and analysis and submission preparation. Due to limited technical and financial capacity they may not be able to complete the submission process without considerable external support,both technical and financial.
Scientific studies have revealed the access to extended continental shelf could mean more access to mineral rich resources previously outside countries' EEZs. Securing greater maritime sovereignty can provide increased revenue for Pacific States and deliver significant economic and social benefits from access to ocean resources that occur on the seabed and within the subsoil.
Since February 2005, a number of regional workshops conducted by SOPAC have assisted countries in conducting the initial desktop assessments to identify areas of potential claims for these Pacific countries to extend sovereignty over their continental shelves.
Training Workshop on Delineation of the Outer Limits of the Continental Shelf beyond 200 nautical miles and for Preparation of a Submission of a coastal State to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, February 28th - March 4th, 2005
This workshop was conducted in Pacific Harbour, Fiji by the United Nations Division of Ocean Affairs & Law of the Sea (UNDOALOS) in collaboration with SOPAC and the Commonwealth Secretariat.
The aim of the course is to provide training necessary to develop the knowledge and skills of appropriate technical and administrative staff of the Coastal State for the preparation of submissions to the Commission.
Forty-five participants who attended the training were from developing States, members of SOPAC, who have been assessed to have potential for extended continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles (M), as well as four other developing States of the neighboring South-east Asia sub-region.
Other attendees are selected members of the Commission on Limits of the Continental Shelf, UNDOALOS/Office Legal Affairs, United Nations Environment Programme Global Resource Information Database (UNEP-GRID), and Geoscience Australia as resource personnel and observers.
An Initial Scanning phase report was undertaken by UNEP GRID Shelf Programme, based in Norway, following this regional workshop where preliminary possibilities of those areas of extended claims were identified based on data available in public domain.
Commissioning of a Regional Desktop Study in November 2006
Following the Initial Scanning report done above, SOPAC commissioned in 2006 a Regional Desktop Study on behalf of Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Kiribati, Tuvalu, Palau, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
The regional desktop study gave an indication of the existing global surveys conducted within these areas of potential claims and the a programme of planned action for the next direction of work was formulated from the study.
Fiji,Papua New Guinea and Tonga had commissioned their own consultants to undertake these studies independently.
Several of the areas identified would be the focus of overlapping claims.
Pacific Islands Regional Consultation with Respect to Article 76 of the Law of the Sea Convention, Brisbane Convention Centre, February 12th - 15th,2007
More than 40 representatives from Pacific Island Countries, FFA and development partners from Australia, France, Japan, Ireland and Norway met in Brisbane in February 2007 to discuss critical issues relating to the delimitation of maritime boundaries and sovereignty over ocean space in the Pacific. The main objective of the meeting was to find ways to support the submission of claims to extension of maritime boundaries over continental shelf areas beyond the 200M Exclusive Economic Zone. The meeting was convened by SOPAC and funded by AusAID.
PNG, Solomon Islands and FSM initiated talks at this meeting to consider the possibility of submitting a joint claim over the Ontong Java Plateau area in order to meet the 2009 deadline. This would leave unlimited time for internal or shared boundary negotiations.
Regional Technical Training Workshops Relating to the Preparations of the Submissions for countries
In close collaboration with other technical agencies such as Geoscience Australia (GA) and the UNEP Shelf Programme, a number of technical meetings and workshops have been organised since July 2007 to assist and support the technical representatives from the eight member countries with a range of capacity building activities and especially providing them with the skills and tools required to prepare and support the technical component of their respective submissions.
The first sub-regional technical workshop was held in Geoscience Australia in July 2007 for the representatives from FSM,PNG and Solomon Islands.
Since 2007, there have been
three other technical multi-country level of training workshops and meetings organised between the collaborative efforts of SOPAC, GA and UNEP Shelf Programme.
The
aim of the workshops have been to train the country technical staff to:
- Assess the results of their desktop study especially with regard to the quality and suitability of the existing data to construct a credible case for ECS;
- Become familiar with the GEOCAP UNCLOS software and the data available for inclusion in the submission;
- Prepare reports on the geology and morphology of the area in relation to article 76 of UNCLOS in order to build the arguments for the delineation of the ECS;
- Develop a strategy and project plan for ECS definition, submission preparation and lodgement.
The ongoing technical support and capacity building activities will successfully develop the required technical skills at the national level to support not only the preparation of submissions but also the ongoing process of defending them to the Commission on Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) after May 13th 2009.
These technical workshops have been funded by the
Pacific Governance Support Program (PGSP) from
AusAID in order to support the regionally coordinated efforts for the Pacific countries and ultimately build sound ocean governance and marine resource security for the region.
The recent training workshop was successfully completed at the University of Sydney campus,which was hosted by the UNEP Shelf Programme office based in Sydney. This workshop was held from November 3rd - 14th, 2008.
"Continental Margin Determiner Software" training workshop, Suva from May 7th -9th 2008
The Japan Hydrographic Association (JHA) and the Ocean High Technology Institute, Inc. funded a regional workshop on training regional participants from the eight countries on their specialised software software.
The
"CMDeterminer" software has been developed to calculate and determine the outer limits of the continental shelf, and the
"Ocean Access" software has been developed as a multibeam data processing software to determine continental margins using gridding, contouring and data conversions at a high quality.
The 3-day workshop was conducted by Mr Kumasaka of JHA and Mr Ueki and Mr Yokoi from the Ocean High Technology Institute, Inc and funded by the Nippon Foundation.
* Related link to the Pacific Island Regional Maritime Boundaries Project
For more information, please contact:
PROJECT STAFF
Emily Artack
Maritime Boundaries Project Officer (Cartographer)
Ocean & Islands Programme
Tel: +679 3381377
Fax: +679 3370040
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Andrick Lal
Senior Project Officer-Surveying
Ocean & Islands Programme
Tel: +679 3381377
Fax: +679 3370040
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