• BEACH LITTER REDUCTION TARGET: An ambitious beach litter target which commits OSPAR countries to a 70% reduction in the prevalence of all marine litter on beaches by 2030. This complements the existing OSPAR target on single-use plastics (SUP) and maritime-related plastic items of a 50% reduction by 2025 and 75% by 2030.
• ACTION ON LITTER FROM THE FISHING INDUSTRY: Measures on the management of expanded polystyrene (EPS) and extruded polystyrene (XPS) fish boxes in ports. These measures encourage all ports that handle these types of boxes to take action to guarantee appropriate disposal to prevent release of EPS/XPS into the marine environment.
• A REGIONAL ACTION PLAN FOR MARINE BIRDS: OSPAR’s QSR 2023 noted that marine birds continue to be in trouble in the North-East Atlantic due to the effects of climate change and habitat loss and degradation. To address this, a Regional Action Plan (RAP) for Marine Birds was adopted. The RAP identifies a series of important protection and conservation actions that support the achievement of the North-East Atlantic Environment Strategy 2030 to achieve biologically diverse and healthy seas, and which will help to halt the decline of marine birds.
• ACTION TO REDUCE THE IMPACTS OF FISHING ON MARINE BIRDS: Contracting Parties adopted measures to reduce incidental bycatch of marine birds from all fishing gears along with commitments to collate data and assess interactions between fishing effort and marine bird bycatch.
• GUIDANCE ON DECOMMISSIONING: to ensure that OSPAR’s policy to remove disused offshore installations from the marine environment is delivered, a new Harmonised Comparative Assessment Methodology was agreed.
• BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES: a key role of OSPAR is to develop best practice guidelines so that activities that take place in the marine environment are sustainable and that any effects are minimised. This year OSPAR adopted guidelines for: the management of dredged materials, Zostera (seagrass) beds habitat restoration, the life cycle management of EPS and XPS, the reduction of marine litter through sustainability training programmes for fishers, monitoring of microlitter (including microplastics) in seafloor sediments, and data collection on discharges, spills and emissions from offshore oil and gas installations.

OSPAR Contracting Parties announced that its next meeting of Ministers from around the North-East Atlantic would be in Spain on Thursday 26 June 2025. At this meeting Ministers will review progress against OSPAR’s North-East Atlantic Environment Strategy 2030 – our shared Roadmap to achieving our vision of a clean, healthy and biologically diverse North-East Atlantic Ocean, which is productive, used sustainably and resilient to climate change and ocean acidification.