6 June 2012: The World Future Council, an international policy research organization, has announced its list of nominees for the Future Policy Award, including 31 policies from 22 countries and regions aiming to protect oceans and coasts.

For this year’s edition of the award, the World Future Council partnered with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). The nominated policies range from national ocean policies, marine protected area (MPA) programmes and integrated coastal zone management plans to policies regulating fisheries, trade in marine products, marine litter and land-sea interactions. They include policies from Australia, the Baltic region, Belize, Canada, the East Asia region, Ecuador, the EU, France/French Overseas Territories, Kenya, Kiribati, Iceland, India, Japan, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, New Zealand, Palau, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa and the US.

The winning policies will be announced at UN Headquarters in New York, US, in September 2012, and celebrated at the 11th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 11) to the CBD in October 2012, in Hyderabad, India. [World Future Council/CBD/FAO/GEF Press Release]