The significance of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg, was its recommitment to sustainable development as the main agenda between nations and its forging of an action plan to achieve this. The Plan of Implementation is important as it represents a new and comprehensive approach towards environmental conservation, the appropriate use of natural resources, and in the fight against poverty. This comprehensive and concrete plan will have a long-reaching impact on oceans and coastal areas around the world.
Selected Papers No.5(p.6)

In Japan, approaches towards a comprehensive coastal management system have made little progress. However, among other major nations of the world, active efforts such as the improvement of administrative agencies, reexamination of policies, and creation of specific programs to achieve such a system are under way. The following is a report on efforts towards ocean policy in the US, EU, France, Britain and Canada.

Mandated by the Oceans Act of 2000, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy was established to make recommendations as basic guidelines concerning future policies to the President for an ocean policy for the 21st century in the United States. The Commission is continuing its deliberative phase. If the Commission finishes its work on schedule, its final recommendations will be delivered in March, 2003 and the President will formulate and present to Congress a national ocean policy within 120 days after receipt.

The French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) recently compiled the French Marine-related Economic Data (2001), a 90-page document in French and English presenting a survey of ocean industries in France. This document is published every other year and this is the 4th in a series. The current document first gives an overview of the Economic Impact of Maritime Industries in Europe, report released by the EU in 2001 on actual conditions in ocean industries in 1997 in EU member countries and Norway. In order to gain an understanding of the big picture of the actual state of the ocean industries in European countries, the main points of the 2001 report are first introduced and then a summary is given of the scale and the structure of the French ocean industries.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) released an 80-page ocean strategy document, Safeguarding our Seas: A Strategy for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of our Marine Environment, on May 1, 2002, a first for the British Government. For Great Britain, being an island country, the sea is a matter of great significance. Prime Minister Blair's speech in March 2001 committed Great Britain to launch measures to improve marine conservation at home and abroad, of which the publication of this document marks the onset.

Canada's Oceans Strategy was announced July 12, 2002 as the Policy and Operational Framework for Integrated Management of Estuarine, Coastal and Marine Environments in Canada. In 1997, Canada brought the Oceans Act into force, making Canada the first country in the world to have comprehensive oceans management legislation. The Oceans Strategy has since been developed, after intensive deliberations on the part of the government, providing an overall strategic approach to oceans management.