OSPAR Network of Marine Protected Areas (OSPAR)

The Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment in the North-East Atlantic, which entered into force in 1998, has as one of the current priority lines of work the creation of a Network of Marine Protected Areas in the waters covered by the agreement which may include those marine areas that meet certain environmental requirements. For this purpose, member states have the obligation to propose areas of interest within their respective jurisdictional waters, including the exclusive economic zone or those marine areas where the state exercises its sovereignty. It complements and updates the 1972 Oslo Convention on Disposals into the Sea and the 1974 Paris Convention on Marine Pollution of Land Origin. In 2008, the Cíes Islands were incorporated, in 2009 El Cachucho and finally, in 2014, the rest of the spaces that make up this data set were incorporated.