The Trilateral Wadden Sea Cooperation (TWSC), with the Wadden Sea Plan (2010) at its backbone, operates to conduct a shared policy and management strategy for the protection and sustainable management of the area, with the imperative of safeguarding its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV).

Since 2009, the Republic of Korea and the countries of the Trilateral Wadden Sea Cooperation have been in mutual exchange – on topics such as management, environmental education, and sustainable tourism, but also on the Wadden Sea’s experience in becoming a World Heritage Site.

Harald Marencic has been with the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat for 27 years. At the end of May 2023, he will retire.

The Wadden Sea can make a valuable contribution to our challenges in the fields of climate, pollution, and biodiversity loss: while being a natural, species-rich ecosystem, its typical habitats also play an important role in carbon sequestration. Next to its Outstanding Universal Value all the more reason to protect it for present and future generations.

As migratory birds are returning from their southern wintering grounds to their breeding sites in the Wadden Sea, in view of the experience in 2022, researchers and site managers are concerned about new outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in colonially breeding birds.

The scale of the outbreak of the bird flu, more specifically the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), in the North Sea region in the breeding season of 2022 was unprecedented.