The Working Group on Monitoring and on Trends and Effects of Substances in the Marine Environment (MIME), a collective of representatives from the OSPAR Convention's sixteen contracting parties, have assembled this week at ICES Secretariat to develop common indicators that will serve countries' implementation of the MSFD.
Common indicators are being established as a means of assessment of Good Environmental Status (GES) Descriptor 8: concentrations of contaminants are at levels not giving rise to pollution effects. Several OSPAR working groups have already begun preparations for bringing in such indicators, and thus MIME is the first one to look at the issues to be addressed in order to advance the process.
MIME generally provides detailed advice on OSPAR' monitoring and assessment of hazardous substances present in the marine environment, and the group's experts are skilled in making yearly assessments of contaminant monitoring data.
The OSPAR convention, formed in 1992, is the binding mechanism through which the sixteen contracting parties – governments of the western coasts and catchments of Europe – alongside the European Union cooperate to protect the marine environment of the North-east Atlantic.
