Ms Grace Fu, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, attended the Fourth Ministerial Forum on the Sustainable Development of the Seas of East Asia at the East Asia Seas Congress 2012 which was held in Changwon City, Republic of Korea on 12 July 2012.

The East Asian Seas Congress 2012 is a triennial event organised by the Partnership in Environmental Management of the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA), and hosted by the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.

At the Ministerial Forum, Ms Grace Fu, together with other Environment Ministers and local government representatives from the East Asian Region, non-governmental organisations, international organisations and relevant private sector organizations, discussed policy directions and commitments to improve and strengthen sustainable development strategies for the Seas of the East Asia region. In particular, Ms Fu elaborated on how Singapore incorporates an integrated urban coastal management framework to protect its local coastal and marine environment.

The Changwon declaration, an aspirational document which seeks to promote a practical coastal and ocean-based economic model for the sustainable development of the Seas of East Asia, was signed by the Ministers at the Forum. A key focus of the declaration was the adoption of a medium-term roadmap to promote the implementation of sustainable development strategies.

Ms Fu said: “The work of PEMSEA, especially that of the Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) Framework and the Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia (SDS-SEA) are relevant and important components to help the region build a sustainable future. Given Singapore’s unique situation as a city-state, we have adopted our own version of the ICM, known as the Integrated Urban Coastal Management (IUCM). Building on the ICM, our IUCM framework is one which leverages the strengths of various existing agencies in port and maritime management, urban planning, integrated water resource management, biodiversity conservation and environmental management.”


MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER RESOURCES
12 JULY 2012

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Other representative countries at the Congress include: Cambodia, Indonesia, the People’s Democratic Republic of Lao, Philippines, Vietnam, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Timor Leste.

Singapore’s IUCM is adapted from the ICM framework developed by PEMSEA, which offers an internationally recognised coastal management framework which aims to maximise involved agencies’ expertise and facilitate better inter-agency coordination. Singapore’s IUCM adoption and implementation was announced by Prof. Tommy Koh, Ambassador-At-Large at the East Asian Seas Congress in 2009, and is under the overall purview of NParks.