The list of nominees for this year’s Future Policy Award is complete: 31 outstanding policies from 22 countries and regions are in the running for the best policy worldwide to protect oceans and coasts. The Future Policy Award celebrates policies that create better living conditions for current and future generations. It is granted by the World Future Council, an international policy research organisation that provides decision makers with effective policy solutions. Each year the World Future Council chooses one topic on which policy progress is particularly urgent. In 2012, the award is dedicated to exemplary coastal and ocean policies. The nominated polices range from national ocean policies, marine protected area programmes and integrated coastal zone management plans to policies regulating fisheries, trade in marine products, marine litter and land-sea interactions.
For this year’s theme the World Future Council is partnering with the UN Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with support from the Okeanos Foundation. Ocean experts from international organisations, academia and non-governmental organisations have submitted nominations. A comprehensive evaluation process is under way and a jury will decide on the winners. The winning policies will be announced at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in September 2012 and celebrated at the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, India in October.
List of Nominations
- Australia – Ocean Policy and Marine Bioregional Planning, 1998
- Australia – Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Zoning Plan, 2003
- Australia – Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999
- Baltic Region – Helsinki Commission Baltic Sea Action Plan, 2007
- Belize – Statutory Instrument Banning Trawling in Territorial Waters, 2011
- Canada’s Ocean Strategy: Our Oceans, Our Future, 2002
- East Asia Initiative on Marine Protected Areas Network, 2008
- Ecuador – Organic Law of Special Regime for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Galapagos, 1998
- European Union – Regulation (EC) No 1007/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on trade in seal products, 2009
- European Union – Article 9 (3) of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC), in relation to Descriptor 10 on Marine Litter, 2008
- France/French Overseas Territories – French Coral Reef Initiative, 1991
- Iceland – National Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities, 2001-2006
- Iceland – Law nr 116/2006 Fisheries Management Act, 2006
- India’s Public Trust Doctrine, 1947
- Japan – Japanese Basic Act on Ocean Policy, 2007
- Kenya – The Fisheries (Beach Management Unit) Regulations (2007) of the Fisheries Act (1989)
- Kiribati – Phoenix Islands Protected Area, 2006
- Mexico – National Environmental Policy for the Sustainable Development of the Oceans and Coasts, 2006
- Namibia – Marine Resources Act, 2000
- Norway – Ocean Resources Act (Havressursloven), 2009
- New Zealand – Fisheries Act, 1996
- Palau – Protected Areas Network Act, 2003
- Palau – Shark Haven Act of 2009
- Philippines – Republic Act No. 10067 Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park Act, 2010
- Singapore – Maritime Singapore Green Initiative 2011-2016
- South Africa – No.24 of 2008: National Environmental Management: Integrated Coastal Management Act, 2008
- USA – California Ocean Protection Act, 2004
- USA – The Lacey Act with its amendments of 1981
- USA – National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes – Executive Order 13547, 2010
- USA – Puget Sound Recovery Act, 2010
- The Public Trust Doctrine, ND