In accordance with the precautionary approach contained in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, the objective of this Protocol is to contribute to ensuring an adequate level of protection in the field of the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology that may have adverse effects on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, taking also into account risks to human health, and specifically focusing on transboundary movements.
The Conference of the Parties (COP) agreed on a provisional list of global headline indicators, to assess progress at the global level towards the 2010 target (decision VII/30), and to effectively communicate trends in biodiversity related to the three objectives of the Convention. In decision VII/30 the COP established a process for testing and developing the indicators, with inputs from SBSTTA, the ad hoc Working Groups on ABS and Article 8(j), and an AHTEG on indicators for assessing progress towards the 2010 biodiversity target.
he 33 deepwater bioregions for the Solomon Islands were condensed into 26 bioregions. The major changes were made to the northwestern side of the Solomon Islands EEZ; there was general agreement about the deepwater bioregions in the southeastern half of the country. Bioregions 120, 164, 167, 192, 244, and 304 were merged with Bioregion 222. Bioregion 226 was split into two halves, and one part of the non-contiguous Bioregion 240 (the part closer to the islands) was merged with 222.
The Institute for Marine Remote Sensing (IMaRS) at the University of South Florida (USF) was funded by the Oceanography Program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to provide an exhaustive worldwide inventory of coral reefs using high-resolution satellite imagery. By using a consistent dataset of high-resolution (30 meter) multispectral Landsat 7 images acquired between 1999 and 2002, USF characterized, mapped and estimated the extent of shallow coral reef ecosystems in the main coral reef provinces (Caribbean-Atlantic, Pacific, Indo-Pacific, Red Sea).
a mapping representation of active and passive continental margins, oceanic plate boundaries and mid ocean spreading ridges
statistical records as of 2014 on the distribution of seamount. Accordingly, there are more seamounts in the Pacific Ocean than in the Atlantic, and their distribution can be described as comprising several elongate chains of seamounts superimposed on a more or less random background distribution (Craig and Sandwell)