Please click here for the Agreement text
All non-Party Range States are encouraged to join the ASCOBANS Parties in their efforts to conserve the small cetacean species they share with other countries in the ASCOBANS Area, conscious that the management of threats to their existence, such as bycatch, habitat deterioration and other anthropogenic disturbance, requires concerted and coordinated responses.
Area-Map of Parties and Range States
Please click here for the Amendment (Entry into Force 3 February 2008)
ASCOBANS was concluded in 1991 as the Agreement on the
Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Seas (ASCOBANS)
under the auspices of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS or Bonn
Convention) and entered into force in 1994. In February 2008, an
extension of the agreement area came into force which changed the name
to "Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic,
North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas". The Secretary General of the
United Nations has assumed the functions of Depository of the Agreement.
ASCOBANS is open for accession by all Range States (i.e. any state that
exercises jurisdiction over any part of the range of a species covered
by the Agreement or whose flag vessels engage in operations adversely
affecting small cetaceans in the Agreement area) and by regional
economic integration organisations.
Originally only covering the North and Baltic Sea, as of 3 February 2008 the ASCOBANS Area has been extended as follows:
"… the marine environment of the Baltic and North Seas and contiguous area of the North East Atlantic, as delimited by the shores of the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland; to the south-east by latitude 36°N, where this line of latitude meets the line joining the lighthouses of Cape St. Vincent (Portugal) and Casablanca (Morocco); to the south-west by latitude 36°N and longitude 15°W; to the north-west by longitude 15° and a line drawn through the following points: latitude 59°N/longitude 15°W, latitude 60°N/longitude 05°W, latitude, 61°N/longitude 4W;latitude 62N/ longitude 3W; to the north by latitude 62°N; and including the Kattegat and the Sound and Belt passages."
Any State that becomes a Party to the Agreement after the entry into force of the Amendment shall, unless a different intention is expressed by that State, be considered as a Party to the Agreement as amended.
Ten countries have so far become Parties to the Agreement:
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