OSPAR is the mechanism by which 15 Governments & the EU cooperate to protect the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic. OSPAR started in 1972 with the Oslo Convention against dumping and was broadened to cover land-based sources of marine pollution and the offshore industry by the Paris Convention of 1974. These two conventions were unified, up-dated and extended by the 1992 OSPAR Convention. The new annex on biodiversity and ecosystems was adopted in 1998 to cover non-polluting human activities that can adversely affect the sea. The fifteen Governments are Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. OSPAR is so named because of the original Oslo and Paris Conventions ("OS" for Oslo and "PAR" for Paris). OSPAR Data & Information Management System (ODIMS) is a fully featured platform for accessing OSPAR's geospatial maps, data and metadata. 61 Maps and 254 layers regarding: - Cables and pipelines - Comprehensive atmospheric monitoring programme - Discharges of radionuclides from the non-nuclear sectors - Discharges, spills and emissions from offshore oil and gas installations - Dumping and placement of wastes or other matter at sea - Environmental monitoring of radioactive substances - Fishing for litter - Vulnerable marine ecosystems - etc.

The dataset on Natura 2000 sites was created in 2014 by Cogea for the European Marine Observation and Data Network. It is entirely based on spatial data from the European Environmental Agency (EEA), plus additional info, links and selected EEA data joined to the feature attributes, as well as a calculation by Cogea of marine and coastal location of features. It is available for viewing and download on EMODnet - Human Activities web portal (www.emodnet-humanactivities.eu). Natura 2000 is an ecological network composed of sites designated under the Birds Directive (Special Protection Areas, SPAs) and the Habitats Directive (Sites of Community Importance, SCIs, and Special Areas of Conservation, SACs). The dataset covers the whole EU. Following the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020, it ceased to be part of the EEA’s institutional networks and governance. In the webmap the EEA dataset has been filtered by Cogea to show only (i) marine sites, i.e. sites with a marine area percentage higher than 0 (as calculated by the EEA) and (ii) sites that, even if not identified as marine by the EEA, intersect the EEA coastline or that are within a distance of 1 km from the coastline (using a 1 km inner buffer from the EEA coastline). In both cases the COAST_MAR field value=1. The EEA coastline dataset is available at https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/eea-coastline-for-analysis-2. Compared with the previous version, this one includes the updated dataset 'Natura 2000 End 2020', published by the EEA in July 2021. For further information (e.g. biogeographic region, directive, habitats, sites, impact, management, species and metadata) please visit the EEA's website hosting the Natura 2000 tabular data.