938 



Preliminary Findings 



1. UNESCO provides one of the most important mechanisms for faci- 

 litating and promoting international cooperative interactions in the 

 marine sciences. Current activities cover a wide range of interests of 

 importance to the U.S. marine science community. About half of these 

 activities are primarily scientific in character, while the remaining 

 pertain to strengthening infrastructures through advanced training and 

 advisory services to meet the needs of the developing world. Some 

 concern has been expressed about the wisdom of merging these two 

 program objectives. 



2. Marine science activities contained in subprograms X.4 and X,5 

 are administered under three functional components: about one half by 

 the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) , one third by the 

 Division of Marine Sciences, and the remaininq portion pertaining to 

 coastal island systems as part of the Man and the Biosphere Program 

 (MAB) , A U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO will affect these three func- 

 tional areas, all of importance to the United States, in different ways. 



3. The United States intends to maintain its membership in the IOC 

 and will be able to profit from the unique collaborative interactions 

 provided by that organization. It is important that the current level 

 of U.S. support of IOC programs be maintained through contributions to 

 the IOC Trust Fund, augmented by a nationally-managed program. 



4. It is equally important to maintain the current level of Divi- 

 sion of Marine Sciences and MAB activities contained in subprograms X.4 

 and X.5. On withdrawal from UNESCO, the United States would only be 

 able to provide substantive guidance to these activities indirectly 

 through its participation in NGOs associated with these programs. 

 Financial contributions could be provided to UNESCO (Funds-in-Trust, 

 donations, etc.) and to NGOs via a U.S. agency sensitive to U.S. 

 interests, such as NSF (including the advice of PIPICO amd BOSP) and 

 USMAB. 



MAJOR PROGRAM X: 

 THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT AND TERRESTRIAL AND MARINE RESOURCES 



Environmental Sciences: Man and the Biosphere Program (MAB) 

 (X.6-X.9) 



Assessment/Potential Impacts 



This section focuses on the subprogram areas (X.6-9) largely having 

 to do with practical problems of natural resource management, which is 

 the thrust of the MAB program. As noted above, portions of X.5 dealing 

 with management of coastal and island regions are closely linked to the 

 MAB program and objectives. The annual budget for programs X.6-9 (pro- 

 jects and staff costs) plus overhead is about $7.4 million — the U.S. 



