THE OCEANS DAY AT CANCUN | Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts and Islands

THE OCEANS DAY AT CANCUN | Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts and Islands Saturday December 4th,2010
The Global Forum was first mobilized in 2001 to help the world’s governments place issues related to oceans, coasts, and SIDS on the agenda of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa (the ten-year review of progress achieved (or lack thereof) in the implementation of the outcomes of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro),and was later formalized at the 2002 World Summit.



In the preparatory process for the WSSD, it became evident that ocean issues were not on the World Summit agenda. Hence, the Global Forum was mobilized to hold the first Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands (in December 2001 at UNESCO, Paris) to lay the groundwork for the inclusion of an oceans perspective at theWSSD by calling atte ntion to the economic and social importance of oceans, coasts, and small island developing States and the serious problems besetting these areas. These efforts were successful in assisting governments in putting oceans on the WSSD agenda. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002, Government delegates agreed on an action plan for oceans, coasts, and islands, with specific targets and timetables for action, to address the problems and threats, to sustainable development noted above. The ocean targets and timetables found in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation represent an important advance because there is now a global consensus reached at the highest political levels that there is an urgent need to take specific actions to achieve the sustainable development of oceans, coasts, and of small island developing States.

But where is the venue??