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North-East Asian Subregional Programme for Environmental Cooperation (NEASPEC) is a comprehensive intergovernmental cooperation framework addressing environmental challenges in North-East Asia.

As a follow-up to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in 1992, NEASPEC was established in 1993 by six member States - China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Japan, Mongolia, Republic of Korea (ROK), the Russian Federation - to promote environmental cooperation in the subregion.

North-East Asian countries have been increasingly exposed to environmental problems coupled with the rapid economic growth of the recent decades. As the subregional cooperation framework, NEASPEC aims to redress the dichotomy between economic growth and environmental protection to improve environmental sustainability of the subregion.

Furthermore, member States recognized the need of a long-term vision and agreed on the development of a long-term strategic plan during the 18th Senior Officials Meeting (SOM-18). Under the recommendation of SOM-19, the 2016-2020 Strategic Plan therefore aims to provide long-visioned directions and approaches of NEASPEC to effectively and efficiently address the five major programme areas mutually identified by its member States as the priority areas of the subregion, while keeping their interlinkages in mind and the accompanying need to integrate economic, social and environmental aspects:


 * Biodiversity and Nature Conservation
 * Transboundary Air Pollution
 * Desertification and Land Degradation
 * Low Carbon Cities
 * Marine Protected Areas

Purpose
NEASPEC aims to achieve the objectives by:


 * Promoting a step-by-step and practical approach towards subregional cooperation based on consensus, capacity building, information sharing, technology transfer and collaborative financing
 * Providing a multilateral cooperation platform for governments, national, subregional and international institutions, private sectors and civil societies to mitigate environmental impacts
 * Strengthening the technological and managerial capabilities of the national institutions
 * Identifying common policy approaches and objectives of member States and linking national strategies with subregional and global initiatives
 * Periodically reviewing environmental trends and the implementation of priority projects with a view to identifying additional priority areas for cooperation

Senior Officials Meetings
As the governing body of NEASPEC, Senior Officials Meeting, SOM provides overall policy guidance and project coordination to NEASPEC by making policy decisions concerning all substantive and financial matters. SOM meets once a year in a member State on a rotational basis.

National Focal Points
The designated focal points (commonly Ministry of Foreign Affairs) in each member State are responsible for coordinating activities, acting as the official channels of communication, and assisting participant institutions in implementing the activities.

NEASPEC Secretariat
UNESCAP has been providing secretariat service for NEASPEC since 1993. In May 2010, UNESCAP East and North-East Asia Office (ENEA) was established in Incheon, Republic of Korea. Upon the establishment of the office, NEASPEC relocated its secretariat from the ESCAP Headquarters to the ESCAP ENEA Office. In addition, the 16th Senior Officials Meeting endorsed the decision to change secretariat status from interim to permanent.

Five Thematic Work Areas
The 2016-2020 Strategic Plan focuses on five thematic work areas and supports the achievement of environment-related Sustainable Development Goals.

Each of the five NEASPEC programmatic areas is closely linked to one or more SDGs. Of note is that the seventeen SDGs are interrelated and can enhance each other, each programmatic area is also indirectly linked and contributes to other SDGs. Besides the programmatic areas outlined in this Plan, new programmatic areas can be developed if such need is identified and consensus reached among member States.

Nature Conservation
North-East Asia (NEA) provides a complex mosaic of habitats for many critically endangered species. There are over one hundred protected areas along international borders among NEA countries and about two dozen protected areas adjoin neighboring protected areas across country borders. This situation requires transboundary cooperation to achieve goals because domestic efforts require support and input from neighboring protected areas. From 2005 - 2013 NEASPEC conducted several Nature Conservation Projects focusing on 6 flagship species, identified in Saving the Flagship Species of North-East Asia, that are critically endangered and unique in the subregion.


 * Amur Tiger (Panther tigris altaica)
 * Amur Leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis)
 * Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia)
 * Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor)
 * White-naped Crane (Grus vipio)
 * Hooded Crane (Grus monachus)

These species do not necessarily inhabit the territories of all NEASPEC member countries. However, each species is one of the key species that constitutes the subregion as one ecologically borderless community, and together can be regarded as flagship species of North-East Asia. Their ecological characteristics have significant potential in bringing multilateral actions to conserve wider habitats and biodiversity. With the identification of the flagship species, NEASPEC member States adopted the Nature Conservation Strategy in 2007, calling upon member States to initiate subregional actions and to take into account the agreed strategy to facilitate the formulation of national policies.

During 2014-2016, NEASPEC implemented two projects on DNA analysis for Amur tigers and leopards, and conservation and rehabilitation of habitats for key migratory birds.

Objectives for 2020 are the implementation of joint plans or projects for the six target species under the NEASPEC Nature Conservation Strategy with enhanced and strengthened transboundary cooperation among all stakeholders.

Project overview
Transboundary air pollution has been recognized as one of the most serious environmental challenges in North-East Asia due to a range of factors, such as geographical proximity of member countries, increase of energy consumption, lack of sufficient technology, rapid urbanization, and inadequacy of existing regional frameworks that address the problem.

North-East Asia faces complex challenges from air pollutants such as PM2.5, PM10, and Ozone and their linkages with other pollutants including SOx, NOx, Black Carbon, NH3, and VOCs. For example, many North-East Asian cities have recently experienced sharp peaks of extremely high levels of air pollution, especially fine particulate matter in relatively short periods of time.

With support from NEASPEC member States, the proposed North-East Asia Clean Air Partnership (NEACAP) would provide the basis for strategic cooperation, through exchange of information, scientific, technical and policy collaboration, taking into account various technical and scientific initiatives and instruments that exist in the subregion.

During 2014-2016, the outcomes of technical and policy studies as well as numerous consultations were reported to Senior Officials Meetings (SOM-19 and SOM-20). At SOM-21, the extensive preparatory process resulted in a proposed voluntary subregional framework, North East Asia Clean Air Partnership (NEACAP).

The aim of the proposed partnership is to ensure the protection of the environment and human health from air pollution in North-East Asia. NEACAP not only complements existing subregional mechanisms, such as Long-range Transboundary Air Pollutants in Northeast Asia (LTP) and Acid Deposition Monitoring Network in East Asia (EANET), but also supports new science-based, policy-oriented cooperation.

A joint review by national experts in NEASPEC member States noted the lack of subregional frameworks to provide a holistic approach covering all components of transboundary air pollution management, including science-to-policy linkages, which should be tackled in the long-term. Objectives towards 2020, thus include to implement joint projects on transboundary air pollution to facilitate information sharing, joint study and cooperation among Member States and relevant institutions.

Project history

 * 2017-2018: North-East Asia Clean Air Partnership
 * 2014-2016: Development of the Technical and Policy Frameworks for TAP Assessment and Abatement in North-East Asia
 * 2011-2012: Reviewing of Addressing Environmental Impact of TAP in North-East Asia
 * 1996-2012:Mitigation of TAP from Coal-fired Power plants in North-East Asia

Project overview
Desertification and Land Degradation (DLD) have vast interconnected causes and consequences in all three dimensions of sustainable development —economic, social, and environmental. It is estimated that 40% of the world’s degraded land are in areas of high poverty and approximately 1.5 billion people worldwide depend directly on these degraded lands for their livelihoods. North-East Asia faces a range of DLD challenges due to its vast landmass, geographical and climate variation, and differences in stages and choices of development paths. Countries in the subregion, in particular China and Mongolia, continue to suffer from deforestation, desertification, and loss of biodiversity.

DLD affects the environment but also endangers both irrigated and rain-fed agricultural land and rangelands, where the livelihoods of more than half the population in the subregion depend. It threatens over 25% of China's landmass (approximately 2.6 million km²) in 18 provinces and has affected more than 400 million people in total. They bring about great economic losses, have adverse impact on health, and most importantly, hinder the progress of poverty reduction.

Mongolia has 77% of territory and almost 90% of its pastureland under threats of DLD. Mongolia is highly vulnerable to ecological changes and impacts of climate change, such as increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation during heavy rain season.

NEASPEC supports collaboration of member countries to share information and to build policy and technical capacity through two new projects: the North-East Asia Multi-stakeholder Plan (NEAMSP) on Combating Desertification and Land Degradation and the Study on North-East Asia Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) and Sustainable Development.

Objective by 2020, are to implement a number of partnership projects recommended by the North-East Asia Multi-stakeholder Plan (NEAMSP) on Combating Desertification and Land Degradation for more coordinated and efficient actions in combating desertification amongst key stakeholders.

North-East Asia Multi-stakeholder Plan
North-East Asia Multi-stakeholder Plan (NEAMSP) is proposed as a practical tool to map activities by multi-stakeholders to combat DLD in the region in order to create an interconnected community of coordinated and efficient actions.

Land Degradation Neutrality


According to UNCCD, Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) is a state whereby the amount and quality of land resources necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security remain stable or increase within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems.

In 2015, LDN was recognized as a key approach to combating DLD in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 15.3 as seen in figure 3). LDN offers new opportunities for using land management as a tool to address other challenges such as biodiversity, climate, food security, poverty, and water availability.

At SOM 21, a subregional study was approved to strengthen the understanding of LDN as a solution for wider sustainability, to identify key opportunities for inter-sectoral and international collaboration, and to share experiences and cases in LDN-related challenges within and beyond the subregion. By incorporating LDN as a key thematic pillar of NEASPEC's DLD works, DLD can be better integrated into subregional and national policies for sustainable development.

With the adoption of the LDN target, all countries are requested to formulate voluntary targets to achieve LDN according to their specific national circumstances and development priorities. With the new global commitments on LDN, its incorporation in the SDGs, and the interlinkages and multiple benefits, a much broader and strategic understanding is needed to unlock the potential of LDN as a solution to promote SDG 15 as well as other SDGs.

Low Carbon Cities
Global carbon concentration is rising. With cities, being the home to half of humanity and East and North East Asia (ENEA)'s share of urban population expected to exceed 70% by the next decade due to continuous rapid urbanization, they act as major carbon emitting zones. However, because of the concentration of population and energy consumption, cities are also where more progress can be made through better urban planning and greater citizen participation.

East and North-East Asia consist of 6 countries with total population of 1.6 billion and contributed almost one-third of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2013, including four of the world’s top ten emitters: China (1st), Russia (4th), Japan (5th) and ROK (12th). The subregion’s high energy and carbon intensity economies require immediate actions in reducing energy consumption, where radical changes in urban development have a critical role.

Project overview
Due to the significant greenhouse gas emissions in the subregion and its linkages and contribution to overall sustainability, NEASPEC held consultations on low carbon city activities in 2013 which emphasized the need for further collaboration. The twentieth Senior Officials Meeting (SOM-20) acknowledged the NEA-LCCP as an open platform for organizations to jointly mobilize their efforts in adopting and advancing low carbon city (LCC) development through four areas of activities:
 * 1) information sharing and communications,
 * 2) technical assistance,
 * 3) analytical studies, and
 * 4) capacity building.

Numerous global and regional networks in Asia consist primarily of municipal governments or academia. In order to add value to these existing networks, launching a platform for organizations working on LCC approaches, policies, and programmes will:


 * Bring together existing and new information and knowledge on LCC approaches and policies
 * Synergize the works of specialized organizations
 * Collectively support municipal authorities in moving towards LCC

North-East Asia has initiated policies and plans for LCC development at both national and city levels. The subregion has a wealth of experiences to offer and has great demand to learn from each other. NEASPEC proposes two activities – peer review at the city-level and comparative study at the national-level – that aim to strengthen knowledge, capacity and networking of experts, and agencies and cities in North-East Asia.

By 2020, the objectives are to fully operationalize a subregional platform for low carbon cities to support communications and cooperation among stakeholders, and link cities and major stakeholders both within and beyond the subregion and promote awareness and capacity to promote low carbon and climate resilient development.

Marine Protected Areas
Oceans cover over 70% of the Earth’s surface area and are the major storehouses for heat from the sun, various kinds of minerals and living organisms, and food resources. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the world’s oceans are highly threatened due to pollution, eutrophication, overfishing, and climate change.

Coastal areas of North-East Asian seas, along the Yellow Sea, are the most highly populated in the world and heavily impacted by increasing economic activities. Four North-East Asian countries, i.e. China, Japan, ROK and the Russian Federation are the key players in capture fisheries, with combined share of about 30 percent of the world’s capture fisheries. The three counties excluding the Russian Federation are also major players in aquaculture production, among the top 15 producers of the world. Furthermore, many intertidal flats in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, providing essential nursery and fishing grounds, are internationally important wetlands as key habitats of migratory birds and provide important ecosystem services as well as livelihoods. Management practices of marine and coastal environment have not been adequate to address those often conflicting ecological and economic requirements and adverse impacts of economic activities.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are “any area of intertidal or sub-tidal terrain, together with its overlying water and associated flora, fauna, historical and cultural features, which has been reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or all of the enclosed environment” (International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)).

Given the complexity and interlinkages of anthropocentric impacts of marine and coastal environment, expected role and challenges of MPAs go beyond the conservation of marine species within designated areas. For instance, while establishment of ecological network of MPAs could enhance the resilience of marine ecosystem, establishment and sustainable management of MPAs often require reconciling of the economic and conservation interests, involving various stakeholders. MPAs in the North-East Asian countries may share similar experiences and challenges despite their variation in size and other attributes described above.

Project overview
North-East Asian Marine Protected Areas Network (NEAMPAN) was established through NEASPEC as the most effective way to further improve the management of various MPAs in the North-East Asia. This subregional MPA network acts as a key subregional platform for information sharing, joint assessment, and monitoring as well as partnership with other regional and global MPA networks with the goal to establish an effective, functional representative network of MPAs in North-East Asia for conservation of marine and coastal biodiversity and more efficient MPA management.

Currently member States have nominated a total of eleven sites as NEAMPAN member sites, including six sites from China, one from Japan, two from ROK, and two from the Russian Federation.

By 2020, NEASPEC hopes to have a fully operational NEAMPAN to support partnerships among target MPAs and stakeholders, and enhance capacity to achieve, inter alia, the Aichi Biodiversity Targets related to marine and coastal biodiversity in a holistic manner.