Bonn, 2 June 2017 - The CMS Secretariat is pleased to announce that with a total of 90 reports, the highest number ever recorded have been submitted. Of all reports received, 29 came from Africa, 12 were sent from Asia, 34 were submitted from European countries, 9 from the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, and 6 from Oceania.

Special attention will be paid to the submissions from Afghanistan, Brazil, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cook Islands, Fiji, Malta, Samoa, Rwanda and Zimbabwe, which were all reporting for the first time. CMS Executive Secretary Bradnee Chambers said: “We highly appreciate the contribution of all the countries that are working hard to achieve the objectives of the Convention, especially those Parties facing humanitarian or other environmental challenges.”

This year, Parties could fill their questionnaires for the second time through the CMS Online Reporting System (ORS). This system aims to facilitate and accelerate communication between CMS and the Parties as well as within the countries themselves. Furthermore, the ORS has been designed as a common tool to be utilized by several MEAs, and thus should facilitate the effort to harmonize reporting across all these organizations. The CMS Secretariat appreciates the flexibility shown by Parties in adapting to the new system. It will be further improved to make it even easier for correspondents to complete the forms, which will in turn lead to better monitoring of the implementation of the Convention. Specific comments and suggestions to make the system more user-friendly are welcome.

As the National Reports are among the most important official documents provided by the countries to the decision-making bodies of CMS and its instruments, a high number of reports is essential to measure the implementation of the Convention. At the same time, the high response rate does much to help prepare the ground for a result-oriented Conference of the Parties 2017.