On Jan 8th-9th, 2011, PEMSEA experts visited YIC. Director Ping SHI introduced the fundamental situation of YIC.

Dr. Chua Thia-Eng, the chairman of PEMSEA, outlined the PEMSEA. Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA) is a regional partnership programme implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and executed by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). The project, started in 1994, was originally known as Prevention and Management of Marine Pollution in the East Asian Seas. For more than a decade, the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA) has been active in the pursuit of sustainable development, protecting life-support systems and enabling the sustainable use and management of coastal and marine resources through intergovernmental, interagency, and multisectoral partnerships. Since its inception in 1994 (Regional Programme on Marine Pollution Prevention and Management for the East Asian Seas Region) the Programme has developed management-related methodologies, techniques, working models and standards to strengthen practical efforts in the field.

Together with its partners, PEMSEA fulfilled its objectives and achieved a number of milestones in the field of integrated coastal management, which include the EAS Congress 2003 and the Ministerial Forum, which led to the signing of the Putrajaya Declaration, also known as the Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia (SDS-SEA). By adopting the SDS-SEA, the Putrajaya Declaration conveys a regional policy commitment to sustainable development of the seas of East Asia and to forge stakeholder partnership arrangements in addressing areas of concern.

The recent East Asian Seas Congress 2009 concluded with the signing of the Agreement Recognizing the Legal Personality of PEMSEA by eight East Asian nations, which transforms PEMSEA into a full-fledged international body to work for sustainable development of the region’s coastal and marine areas. Eleven Ministers and high-level delegates also signed the Manila Declaration on Strengthening the Implementation of Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) for Sustainable Development and Climate Change Adaptation in the Seas of the East Asia Region.

PEMSEA focuses on the development objective of facilitating the implementation of the SDS-SEA through the mobilization of necessary partnerships arrangements, operating mechanisms, intellectual capital, support services and resources for the achievement of the shared vision of sustainable use of coastal and marine resources of the region and the development targets of the WSSD Plan of Implementation and the UN Millennium Development Goals.

PEMSEA's partners include the following countries and organizations:

Country Partners
Cambodia/China/North Korea/Indonesia/Japan/Laos/Philippines/South Korea/Singapore/Timor-Leste/Vietnam
Non-Country Partners
Conservation International Philippines/Coastal Management Center (CMC)/IOC Subcommission for the Western Pacific (IOC/WESTPAC)/International Ocean Institute (IOI)/International Environmental Management of Enclosed Coastal Seas Center (EMECS)/International Union for Conservation of Nature - Asia Regional Office/Korea Environment Institute (KEI)/Korea Maritime Institute (KMI)/Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI)/Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP)/Ocean Policy and Research Foundation (OPRF)/Oil Spill Response and East Asia Response Limited (OSRL/EARL)/Plymouth Marine Laboratory/Swedish Environmental Secretariat for Asia (SENSA)/UNDP/GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP)/UNEP Global Programme of Action (UNEP/GPA)/UNDP/GEF Yellow Sea LME Project (YSLME)

Collaborators
Asean Center for Biodiversity/Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria, Australia/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States Department of Commerce/Victorian Coastal Council, Victoria, Australia
After that experts from PEMSEA had thorough exchange with researchers from YIC and discussed future co-operation. Vice director Song QIN guided the experts in visiting the laboratories of YIC.