Baltic Sea Action Plan Stakeholder Conference materials released

Helsinki, 12 April (HELCOM) – The Helsinki Commission is pleased to announce the release of a full set of materials from the Stakeholder Conference on the development of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan held on 7^th March 2006 in Helsinki, Finland.

The overall aim of the Stakeholder Conference attended by representatives of the scientific and business communities, governments of all the Baltic Sea coastal countries, as well as major regional organisations was to inform on the purpose and foreseen activities within the strategic HELCOM plan to restore the Baltic marine environment, and to get input and commitments to its development at the local, national, and regional levels, as well as from the private sector.

Materials related to the Conference, including the programme, the general presentation of the aim and timing of the Baltic Sea Action Plan and the introduction to the state of marine environment, draft HELCOM thematic assessment reports, presentations and comments from the four thematic sessions on the proposed objectives for the main environmental issues, as well as presentations by high-level politicians, are available on the HELCOM web site at http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP/kickoff/en_GB/kick_off/.

For information on the concept of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan, please visit http://www.helcom.fi/BSAP/en_GB/intro/.

For more information, please contact:

Nikolay Vlasov

Information Secretary

Tel.: + 358 9 6220 2235

Fax: +358 9 6220 2239

E-mail: nikolay.vlasov@helcom.fi