Established at the 18th Meeting of the ASCOBANS Advisory Committee (AC18, 2011), the Extension Area Working Group was established in order to covering another important range area of many species for an improved assessment of their conservation status as well as frequently occuring threats such as ship strikes and bycatch.

Original Terms of Reference as in AC19/Doc.5-09 (WG) (2012):

Intersessional Working group on research and conservation actions undertaken in the extended Agreement Area

1. Reporting will concentrate upon giving summary information on progress in the extension area to-date, identifying common themes and any region specific issues (e.g. particular fisheries, new pressures identified, local species abundance or trends).

2. To make recommendations to Contracting Parties on how the Agreement could address such issues.

3. To promote collaboration with ACCOBAMS and those non-Party Range States within the extended Agreement area.

4. The group will report back to the ASCOBANS MoP7 [2012].

The 19th Meeting of the ASCOBANS Advisory Committee (AC19, 2012) decided that the report of the Informal Working Group on Large Cetaceans would in future be combined with that of the Extension Area Working Group.