News.Dec 06, 2017

Source-to-sea a Swedish priority in high-level political meeting

Source-to-sea approaches are a priority discussion item for the Swedish Government as the world’s environmental ministers meet at a high-level event in Nairobi this week.

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The Government of Sweden highlights source-to-sea approaches as a means to tackle land-based marine pollution at the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA). UNEA is the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment with universal membership of all 193 UN Member States.

“Pollution is the most common cause of death globally,” Minister of the Environment Sweden, Karolina Skog said. “Now, an increased commitment from all countries and actors is needed”.

Source-to-sea approaches work with multiple actors along water bodies to improve coordination and cooperation around sources of pollution from their point of origin to where most of them end up, the ocean.

Earlier this year, the Swedish Government increased its financial support to the Action Platform for Source-to-Sea Management (S2S Platform), a multi-stakeholder initiative hosted by SIWI that enables experts from freshwater, coastal and marine backgrounds to collaborate on improving the management of water linkages from “source-to-sea”.

For more information about the S2S Platform visit their recently re-launched website and follow them on Twitter at @S2Splatform.