Press release
New HELCOM project to produce full-scale assessment of the Baltic coastal fish
Helsinki, 22 February (HELCOM Information Service) – HELCOM has launched a new project to produce the most comprehensive assessment of the coastal fish in the Baltic Sea area that will help identify potential restoration programmes for threatened species. This assessment will contribute to the activities within the framework of the strategic HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan to restore the good ecological status of the regional marine environment by 2021. At the first meeting of the HELCOM Project for Expert Network on Monitoring and Protecting of Coastal Fish and Lamprey Species (HELCOM FISH) held on 18-20 February in Riga, Latvia, experts from the coastal countries discussed the objectives, scope of the work, and responsibilities of the group.
“The Project has immense value for the biodiversity and nature conservation related work in the Baltic Sea region,” says Anne Christine Brusendorff, HELCOM’s Executive Secretary. “The main objectives of HELCOM FISH are to update and improve knowledge about occurrence, distribution, population and threat and/or decline on coastal fish and lamprey species including all andromous species. The Project will also provide updates for the HELCOM Indicator Fact Sheets on coastal fish.”
Coastal fish populations are important components of Baltic Sea biota and are affected by environmental status, such as eutrophication, climate change and hazardous substances as well by direct human impacts through fisheries. In an effort to improve the state of the Baltic marine environment, and thus also reduce pressures on the fish community, experts have already formulated ecological objectives to restore and maintain structure and functioning of coastal fish communities, species and genetic diversity of coastal fish including non-commercial species, and healthy fish (individuals).
At its meeting, the expert network agreed on concrete outputs of the three year project – results which directly support the implementation of the relevant commitments laid out in the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan. The biodiversity and nature conservation segment of the plan addresses amongst other issues the need to produce an assessment of the conservation status of non-commercial fish species and the promotion of research aiming at developing additional methods for the assessment and reporting of the impacts of fisheries on biodiversity. The action plan also commits to promote ecosystem-based management of coastal fisheries in the Baltic region and the development of long-term plans for, protecting, monitoring and sustainably managing coastal fish species, including the most threatened and/or declining species.
The Project’s group has committed to providing indicators of coastal fish to the HELCOM thematic assessment on biodiversity and nature conservation, which is to be completed in 2009. Other expected outputs of the project include the production of a set of indicators and reference values for coastal fish, evaluation and recommendations of how the indicators should be used in assessments of coastal fish, production of a thematic assessment on coastal fish using the indicators, including scientific information necessary for identifying potential restoration programmes, as well as contribution to the revision of the HELCOM Red List of threatened and declining species of lampreys and fish.
It has been agreed that the HELCOM FISH project will produce a comprehensive set of local indicator fact sheets on coastal fish based on information gathered from almost all major sub-basins of the Baltic Sea by May 2008. The fact sheet will include communities’ indicators (number of species, relative total biomass, species diversity, slope of size spectrum) and keys species indicators (species biomass, maximum length, slope of size spectrum).
For further information about the status of coastal fish, please see:
HELCOM Indicator Fact Sheet: Temporal development of Baltic coastal fish communities and key species
HELCOM BSEP 103A: Assessment of Coastal Fish in the Baltic Sea (2006)
HELCOM BSEP 103B:
HELCOM Coastal Fish Monitoring GIS
Note to Editors:
The Helsinki Commission, or HELCOM, works to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution through intergovernmental co-operation between the countries bordering the sea - Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and also the European Community.
HELCOM is the governing body of the "Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area," more usually 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