United Nations System-wide Earthwatch is an initiative set up by the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
to bring together environmental observations by UN agencies within a consistent framework.
Formation and mandate
Earthwatch was established in 1972 to "monitor major global disturbance in the environment and to give early warning of problems requiring international action". The program is coordinated by the
United Nations Environmental Programme
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on th ...
(UNEP).
The focus is on providing data to support decision-making in response to the UN General Assembly resolution on "Strengthening International Cooperation in the monitoring of Global Environmental Problems".
The mandate was strengthened by the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
and its Agenda-21 chapter on Information for Decision Making.
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Organization
The UNEP Division of Early Warning and Assessment provides the Earthwatch Secretariat, based in Nairobi.
Since September 2002 the Secretariat has been supported by DEWA/GRID-Europe.
The Earthwatch unit in Geneva maintains contact with UN agencies and develops the Earthwatch website.
This site is an important source of information on environmental and development information for scientists and the public.[
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Evolution
It became clear at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development
The World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002, took place in South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September 2002. It was convened to discuss ustainable developmentorganizations, 10 years after the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. (It was the ...
in Johannesburg that there was a need to pursue Agenda 21, to improve global data collection and monitoring, to improve open communications and eliminate duplicate effort.
This led to a Plan of Implementation with a 10-20 year horizon under which Earthwatch would focus on collecting and correlating data related to the Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 that had been established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millenn ...
. Earthwatch would also identify gaps in available data.[
At the 8th Earthwatch meeting in mid-October 2004 it was agreed to improve collaboration between UN agencies.
The UN Environment Management Group (EMG) had been set up to coordinate UN agencies in area related to the environment and human settlements, playing a valuable role in setting policy. It was agreed that Earthwatch and the EMG were complementary and could benefit from sharing results. It was also agreed to consider ways in which Earthwatch could better communicate information.][
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References
{{reflist , refs=
[{{cite web
, url=http://www.grid.unep.ch/activities/earthwatch/
, title=Earthwatch
, publisher=UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Europe
, access-date=2011-10-19]
External links Official website
United Nations Environment Programme
Environmental monitoring
Organizations established in 1972