IMDOS was represented at the International Conference on Marine Environmental Management, organised by the Ocean Conservation Administration of Taiwan held in Taipei, mid-September 2025, by ECOP Steering Committee Member Mafalda de Freitas.
In a session focused on debris and coastal impacts, Mafalda presented recent work on marine debris in Hawaiʻi—covering origins and pathways, and the need for solutions with an emphasis on international prevention strategies.
The meeting convened researchers, policymakers, and practitioners from across the Pacific Rim and Asia, providing a timely forum to discuss approaches to monitoring, source reduction, and community interventions. During discussions, IMDOS was briefly introduced as a platform to harmonise methods, connect datasets, and develop policy-relevant indicators, with participants expressing interest in linking regional efforts to a globally interoperable observing system.
Pacific islands and coastlines are on the front line of transboundary plastic flows. Aligning regional monitoring with IMDOS guidance will help produce comparable, open data that support prevention policies—from source reduction to circular-economy measures—while ensuring local work contributes to a consistent global evidence base.
Get involved: If your team works on debris monitoring or mitigation in the Pacific/Asia region and would like to connect to IMDOS Task Teams or interoperability pilots, get in touch, or add your project to our growing directory here.