UN Environment/ Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) organized a meeting of the Ecosystem Approach Correspondence Group on Marine Litter Monitoring in Podgorica, Montenegro, on 4 April 2019.

The main objective of the meeting was to review and provide guidance on the status of implementation of the Integrated Monitoring and Assessment Programme (IMAP) with regard to Ecological Objective 10 (EO10) on marine litter.

The meeting was attended by representatives of 15 Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention. Further participants included experts from the European Environment Agency (EEA), European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODNET), European Topic Centre, Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area (ACCOBAMS), Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development (MIO-ECSDE), Mohammed IV Foundation for Environmental Protection, University of Malaga - PANACEA Project and University of Siena.

The Meeting acknowledged that most monitoring programmes on marine litter in the Mediterranean are aligned with the IMAP requirements, while coherence is ensured between UN Environment/MAP IMAP, EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and other regions (for example, the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic – OSPAR, Black Sea) on marine litter monitoring.

In line with this, participants requested UN Environment/MAP MED POL to continue and enhance its assistance to the Contracting Parties towards the finalisation of the national monitoring programmes on marine litter.

With regard to UN Environment/MAP’s work to update/revise the IMAP list for beach marine litter, participants highlighted the importance of coordinated efforts at different levels to ensure consistency among the different lists of marine litter items applied in the Mediterranean as well as other regions.

The Meeting acknowledged the developments achieved with respect to the preparation of data standards and data dictionaries for IMAP common indicators on marine litter. It recommended that the MAP Secretariat and INFO/RAC prepare by the end of the next biennium (2020-2021) similar data standards and data dictionaries for other IMAP common indicators related to the pollution cluster, through the engagement of designated national experts.