CCICED 2026 Roundtable

The 2026 edition of the CCICED roundtable will be held in Xiamen City, Fujian Province, on May 25-26 under the title “Harmony Between Humanity and the Ocean: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth.”

The Roundtable is an essential fixture of the CCICED calendar, providing a platform for the community to explore regional environmental and development priorities, progress, and challenges—and their alignment with CCICED’s research and policy guidance.

The 2026 CCICED Roundtable will share CCICED’s research findings and policy guidance across the sustainable blue economy, biodiversity conservation, low-carbon transition, and green international development through discussions on the following topics:

• Promoting synergies among multilateral conventions to advance global ocean governance
• Accelerating the green and low-carbon transition of marine industries to develop a renewable blue economy
• Deepening the development of “Beautiful Bays” to drive the high-quality growth of the bay-area economy

The panels will combine insights from CCICED’s Special Policy Studies with external perspectives. The Roundtable will also include a site visit to Tong’an Bay. Tong’an was selected as a “Beautiful Bay” example for 2025—the highest honor conferred under this national initiative—with its pioneering “mountaintops to ocean” restoration model.

Agenda

May 24
Meeting Registration

May 25
09:00 Opening Remarks

09:20 Keynote Speech

10:00 Tea Break

10:30 Session 1: Promoting Synergies Among Multilateral Conventions to Advance Global Ocean Governance
This session aims to explore ways to enhance the synergy between international frameworks, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). By sharing practical experiences, it seeks to identify paths for improving the global ocean governance system and to promote the realization of multiple objectives: biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and sustainable use.

11:30 Discussion

12:00 Lunch Break

14:00 Session 2: Accelerating the Green and Low-Carbon Transition of Marine Industries to Develop a Renewable Blue Economy
This session focuses on the green and low‑carbon transformation of marine industries, examining development opportunities and practical pathways in areas such as marine renewable energy, green shipping, blue food, and coastal tourism. By sharing international experience and Chinese practices, the session explores policy tools and innovative models to promote the coordinated advancement of high‑quality marine economic development and marine ecosystem protection, thereby accelerating the establishment of a resource‑efficient and environmentally friendly marine industrial system.

15:00 Tea Break

15:30 Session 3: Deepening the Development of “Beautiful Bays” to Drive the High-Quality Growth of the Bay-Area Economy
This session aims to center on the concept of “harmony between humanity and the ocean” by sharing practical experience in areas such as bay ecosystem governance, integrated coastal zone management, marine ecological restoration, and bay-area planning. It will explore how integrated land–sea planning and regional coordination can be leveraged to promote continuous improvement of the marine ecological environment, and to achieve positive interaction between bay ecosystem conservation and the high‑quality development of bay‑area economies.

16:30 Discussion

17:10 Introduction of Field Study

17:20 Meeting Summary

17:30 Meeting Closed

May 26 (morning)
Field Visit to Tong’an Bay, Xiamen
Tong’an Bay is the largest inner bay in Xiamen, with a marine area of over 100 square kilometers and a shoreline stretching 75 kilometers. Several streams, including the Dongxi Stream, Guanxun Stream, and Daitou Stream, flow into the bay. The area encompasses important ecological sites such as the Wuyuan Bay Wetland Park, Xiatanwei Mangrove Park, the Xiamen Wuyuan Bay Chestnut‑headed Bee‑eater Nature Reserve, and the Xiamen National Nature Reserve for Rare Marine Species. Through the systematic implementation of ecological protection and restoration measures—combining “beach restoration” with “wetland reconstruction”—the bay has established an ecological security framework described as “one barrier, one bay, and three corridors”.

Using “Junying Village, Baijiaoci Village, the Dongxi Stream, and Tong’an Bay” as a pilot, the initiative explores an integrated conservation and governance model extending from mountaintops to the ocean. This approach has gradually enhanced and amplified ecological value, forging a new pathway toward high‑quality development based on strong ecological assets. In 2025, Tong’an Bay was selected as an Outstanding Case in the third batch of “Beautiful Bay” best‑practice examples.