Background

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is a comprehensive and strategic process to allocate the rational use of marine space and the interactions among its uses to minimize the conflicts between human activities and balance the economic development and environmental protection. It is an enabler to addressing climate change, optimizing marine conservation, and developing the blue economy as well as a major contribution to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), also known as the “Ocean Decade”, adopted by the 72nd UN General Assembly on 5 December 2017.

MSP has gained increasing attention from the Western Pacific countries, but its development in most of countries and adjacent areas are still at the early stage. Considering the pressing demands of IOC Member States in the region for marine management and sustainable use of resources, the IOC Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific (WESTPAC) initiated an Ocean Decade Action “Accelerate Marine Spatial Planning in the Western Pacific”, which was officially registered as UN 21 project in 2022. The project strives to capitalize on the MSPglobal Initiative and its results, and provide guidelines to the countries in the region to reach their environmental, social and economic objectives with an ecosystem-based approach and promote the development of their MSP plans. 

In this context, with the aim to promote the implementation and engagement in the UN21 project and accelerate the MSP process in the Western Pacific and its adjacent areas, IOC/WESTPAC was determined to convene a group of experts to provide policy and technical insights, assistance and support to facilitate the MSP development in the region. Upon the approval by the 14th Intergovernmental Session of IOC Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific (WESTPAC-XIV) and based on the recommendations from the member states, the Group of Experts (GoE) in Marine Spatial Planning in the Western Pacific has been established.