The agreement, known as the Strategic Action Programme (SAP), is the result of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) / Global Environment Facility (GEF) Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem Project. It sets regional environmental targets to address some of the major transboundary problems and outlines management actions to achieve those targets by the year 2020.

The Yellow Sea is located between mainland China and the Korean peninsula. Its ecosystem has been endangered by several factors, including over-exploitation of fisheries, nutrient enrichment, changes in ecosystem structure and function, and land reclamation projects.

According to the United Nation’s Large Marine Ecosystem Report in 2009, more than 60 percent of Yellow Sea fish stocks are either overexploited or collapsing. The World Wildlife Fund reports more than 40 percent of intertidal wetlands have been reclaimed and the Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem Project’s environmental status reports suggested that the major pollutants - inorganic nitrogen, heavy metals and oils - could be impacting fisheries production.

SAP, signed in November 2009, aims to maintain and improve the capacity of the Yellow Sea to provide ecosystem services to neighbouring countries. Since January 2005, the Republic of Korea and the People’s Republic of China have worked with the UNDP/GEF and UNOPS to protect the Yellow Sea Large Marine ecosystem (YSLME). The YSLME project has now been extended until March 2011.

The project carried out a scientific assessment of the environmental problems. YSLME working groups studied five sectors; the ecosystem, fisheries, pollution, biodiversity and investment in order to establish the SAP which introduces a series of management, legal, policy and institutional reforms.

These reforms have now been agreed upon by the participating governments and include actions to sustain the sea and help its recovery such as a 30 percent reduction in fishing, reducing point source pollution by 10 percent every five years and controlling new reclamation.

Mr. Zhanhai Zhang, Director-General, Department of International Cooperation, State Oceanic Administration, China, and Mr. Sang-Pyo Suh, Director, Economic Organization & Environment Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea, signed the statement of agreement approving the SAP at an endorsement ceremony in China. Representatives from UNDP/GEF, the project manager, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea participated as observers of the signing.