Parties to the Tehran Convention have come a step closer to establishing a harmonised way for monitoring and assessing the state of the Caspian Sea environment.

The states are furthermore negotiating a protocol which is expected to include binding obligations to harmonise the collection, access to and sharing of environmental data among themselves. The information is then due to help protect the Sea’s marine environment and ensure that stakeholders are able to play a role in these efforts.

A working group on monitoring and assessment made up of experts from all Tehran Convention Parties met for the first time on 20-21 January. The group is tasked with the implementation of the Caspian Environmental Monitoring Programme. It will also accompany the negotiations between the Caspian states towards the legally-binding information-sharing treaty.

To that end, approaches for establishing regional marine water quality standards and targets, as well as legal and technical aspects of monitoring and data exchange were considered during the meeting. The group also discussed preparations of a second report on the state of the Caspian Sea marine environment, among other topics.

The Tehran Convention - ratified by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan - fosters cooperation for the protection of the Caspian Sea environment. The interim Secretariat of the Convention is administered by the UNEP Regional Office for Europe.

Further negotiations on the Protocol and the next meeting of the working group are scheduled for late 2016.

For more details please click here or contact Daniel Nixdorf at daniel.nixdorf@unep.org