HELCOM releases Annual Report on 2007 activities

Helsinki, 24 June (HELCOM Information Service) – The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM) today released its annual report on 2007 activities.

The report summarises the activities of HELCOM related to the protection of the Baltic marine environment over the period March 2007 to March 2008. It provides an overview of HELCOM’s assessments of current trends in the Baltic marine environment, as well as details recent HELCOM activities aimed at reducing pollution to the Baltic Sea, improving safety of navigation, as well as halting the decline in biodiversity.

“2007 was a year of great success and achievement for HELCOM. It was a year when we made history by creating an ambitious yet realistic action plan to cease excessive pollution inputs and restore the health of the Baltic Sea by 2021,” says Anne Christine Brusendorff, HELCOM’s Executive Secretary. “Following more than two years of intense consultations, 38 expert and senior officials meetings, and two major international stakeholder conferences, the ministers of the environment of the nine Baltic Sea countries and the European Commission adopted the Baltic Sea Action Plan at a HELCOM ministerial-level meeting held on 15 November 2007 in Krakow, Poland. The adoption of the plan marked a key turning point in the destiny of our fragile Baltic Sea. It will forever change the ways in which the coastal countries manage the marine environment,” says Brusendorff.

The Baltic Sea Action Plan is a first ever attempt by a regional seas convention to incorporate an innovative ecosystem-based approach into the protection of the marine environment. The core policy of the plan is based on Ecological Objectives defined to reflect a common vision of a healthy sea - a sea with diverse biological components functioning in balance and supporting a wide range of sustainable human economic and social activities. This vision dictates the need for specific, tailor-made solutions for different environmental challenges.

One of the major highlights of the new plan is that it opens a new era in marine environmental protection by including the concept of maximum allowable nutrient input, which still makes it possible for the Baltic Sea to reach a good ecological status. The plan also contains provisional country-wise annual nutrient input reduction targets for both nitrogen and phosphorus, the nutrient pollutants responsible for the continuing degradation of the sea.

HELCOM has become the first marine convention in the world to have developed a truly overarching programme of actions for the rehabilitation of an entire sea basin. The plan highlights an integrated approach to the protection of the Baltic Sea, which combines environmental objectives with sectoral goals, acknowledging that both can benefit from more holistic measures (e.g. fisheries, agriculture and maritime transportation).

The holistic plan contains concrete and meaningful actions to solve all major problems affecting the Baltic Sea. Its four segments include measures designed to curb eutrophication, to prevent pollution involving hazardous substances, to improve maritime safety and accident response capacity, and to halt habitat destruction and the decline in biodiversity. The plan specifies milestones and final compliance dates. It includes a system of measurable parameters that will enable us to evaluate the efficiency of adopted measures, and to determine whether we are on our way towards reaching the desired state of the Baltic Sea.

The HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan incorporates inputs from major stakeholder groups and the findings of numerous project studies, workshops, and key regional environmental policies. This plan has already been widely heralded as a pilot project for European seas under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, and a model to be followed by other regional marine conventions around Europe. In November 2007, the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan was awarded the European Regional Champions Award as an outstanding example of an innovative regional environmental programme.

“The HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan took a long time to craft, and we are still only at the beginning of a long road towards achieving our shared goal of a healthy marine environment,” says Brusendorff. “The most challenging implementation phase still remains ahead. For the success of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan, it will be extremely important to ensure good co-operation and co-ordination between all the countries in the Baltic Sea region. The overall state of the sea can only be further improved through combined efforts and integrated actions,” says Brusendorff.

Follow-up: Click here to view the annual report.

To order your print copy, please call the HELCOM Secretariat: + 358 (0)207 412 649 or send an e-mail to info@helcom.fi.

Note to Editors:

The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission, more usually known as the Helsinki Commission, or HELCOM, is an intergovernmental organisation of all the nine Baltic Sea countries and the EU which works to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution. 

HELCOM is the governing body of the "Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area," known as the Helsinki Convention.

For more information, please contact:

Mr. Nikolay Vlasov
Information Secretary

HELCOM
Tel: +358 (0)207 412 635
Fax: +358 (0)207 412 639

E-mail: nikolay.vlasov@helcom.fi