UNEP and the adoption of 109 specific recommendations for UNEP. 

 These recommendations may be categorized in three major program 

 areas — environmental assessment, environmental management, and 

 supporting measures. Environmental assessment provides the basis for 

 responsible environmental management, and is called Earthwatch. 

 Earthwatch is, in turn, a four-part program involving monitoring, 

 research, evaluation, and information exchange. 



The Third Meeting of the UNEP Governing Council during April- 

 May 1975 made substantial progress towards the design and implemen- 

 tation of the Global Experimental Monitoring System (GEMS). The 

 results included the specification of principles, the identification of 

 program goals, priority pollutants, and related environmental factors, 

 and the recommendations for future work and institutional arrange- 

 ments. One of GEMS' primary objectives will be to contribute to an 

 assessment of the state of ocean pollution and its impact on the marine 

 ecosystem. The UNEP Governing Council adopted guidelines for in- 

 tergovernmental cooperation in monitoring that includes international 

 sharing of responsibility for implementing monitoring systems in areas 

 outside national jurisdiction, such as the oceans. 



UNEP is looking to the Intergrated Global Ocean Station System 

 (IGOSS) as a basis for the ocean component of GEMS. IGOSS, a service- 

 oriented program jointly sponsored by IOC and the World Meteorologi- 

 cal Organization (WMO), is comprised of cooperative activities for the 

 near-real-time collection and compliation of ocean observational data, 

 and the preparation and distribution of oceanographic analyses and pre- 

 dications. 



The first experimental IGOSS activity, the BATHY Pilot Project, was 

 started in 1972. Its purpose is to determine whether, on an international 

 basis, expendable bathythermograph data could be effectively ex- 

 changed by radio telecommunication using special international code 

 forms developed for this project, and if such data would be useful in the 

 preparation of analyses and predictions. The BATHY Pilot Project has 

 also demonstrated that IGOSS is a viable system for the real-time ex- 

 change of temperature, salinity and current data (TESAC). In early 1975, 

 the IOC and WMO agreed to convert the BATHY Pilot Project activity 

 into an operational program. Over 20 nations are now participating in 

 the BATHY /TESAC programs. 



A second experimental IGOSS activity, the Marine Pollution 

 Monitoring (Petroleum) Pilot Project, was begun in January 1975. Its 

 goal is to test the mechanisms for the collection and exchange of data re- 

 lated to pollution of the oceans resulting from petroleum hydrocarbon 

 residues. The program is monitoring oil slicks, floating particulate 

 residues or "tar balls," and tar on beaches, and is collecting samples of 

 dissolved petroleum hydrocarbons in the surface waters of the ocean. 



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