This Overview is intended to provide the background for the Action Plan for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment in the Northwest Pacific Region. The Action Plan will be based primarily on the principles and guidelines that have existed since the Stockholm Conference, which have been endorsed by the UNEP Governing Council, and which have served the existing 11 Regional Seas Programmes well. However, these principles and guidelines are augmented somewhat and reinterpreted as a result of the UNCED declarations. This "updating" does not entail any fundamental changes in principle, but it reflects a shift away from a narrow, sectoral approach which addressed single problems in isolation, in favour of a broad, integrated approach which still addresses the same problems, but it does so in relation to other activities and responsibilities in the coastal zone. In addition, while this new approach does not question the importance of assessment, measuring and monitoring, it recognizes these activities as only a means to an end, and gives higher priority to the application of solutions to problems rather than merely identifying them. This Overview therefore depicts the regional situation and, having identified problem areas, proposes possible solutions.