The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has been a long-standing non-country partner of the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA).

At the East Asian Seas (EAS) Congress 2024, ACB and the PEMSEA Resource Facility (PRF) shall renew their shared commitment to pursue collaborative actions aligned with global and regional agreements to help conserve and promote the sustainable use of biological diversity, including the equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of such natural treasures by imparting and delivering knowledge and tools to better manage biodiversity.

This programme aims to present the above commitments through a Letter of Cooperation between ACB and PEMSEA signed in October 2024 while discussing its collaboration through the UNDP / GEF / ASEAN project entitled Effectively Managing Networks of Marine Protected Areas in Large Marine Ecosystems in the ASEAN Region (ASEAN ENMAPS).

The collaborative action specifically focuses on strengthening the enabling environment for the management and governance of Marine Protected Area (MPA) networks through training and capacity development activities, linking Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) and other area-based management tools like marine spatial planning and ecosystems-based fisheries management through learning exchange, knowledge management and peer-to-peer networking.