HELCOM identifies key priority areas to facilitate the recreation of a healthy Baltic Sea

Helsinki, 9 March (HELCOM Information Service) – The high-level segment of the annual HELCOM Meeting ended here today with an adoption of a joint Communiqué which provides an overview of the current status of the implementation of the Baltic Sea Action Plan to radically reduce pollution to the Baltic Sea as well as identifies key priority areas to facilitate this process.

“To support the continued implementation process of the action plan, senior government officials of the HELCOM Members have agreed to ensure a continuous and increased political support for the successful implementation of the Baltic Sea Action Plan, which will require a range of activities: from increased knowledge, awareness building, policy development, pilot studies to large scale investment projects,” says Anne Christine Brusendorff, HELCOM’s Executive Secretary.

The Communiqué highlights that all Baltic Sea coastal countries have now prepared their National Implementation Programmes (NIPs) to achieve the objectives of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan in accordance with their national procedures and needs. The NIPs show several similarities between the countries on how they perceive and deal with challenges related to the marine environment. As an example, activities are being undertaken in many countries around the Baltic to reduce inputs of nutrients from diffuse sources, including agriculture, to build or upgrade wastewater treatment plants to further improve nutrient removal and sanitary standards. Similarly, a concerted action is being initiated to upgrade port reception facilities for sewage to eliminate nutrient input from passenger ships to the Baltic Sea. Some actions are being developed to enhance effective use of nutrient containing sewage sludge as well as manure from animal farms in modern biogas plants and for fertilizer use, thus reducing nutrient losses and saving valuable nutrient resources. Several countries have already, either in their legislation or by voluntary means, banned phosphorus containing laundry detergents for household use. To protect Baltic Sea biodiversity, the countries have been effective in designating more than 10% of the Baltic marine area as marine protected areas.

The joint Communiqué admits that there are also some slow- and even no-progress areas. While the NIPs list several accomplished and successful actions, less progress and fewer concerted initiatives have been presented to reduce nutrient input from diffuse sources, to control the spread of hazardous substances or to reduce the impacts from fisheries activities. In order to address these issues, adequate legislative and voluntary measures and enforcement of existing requirements need to be ensured.

Following the fact that agriculture is the main source of nutrient inputs, HELCOM needs to guarantee efficient work within the HELCOM Baltic Agriculture and Environment Forum, established by the HELCOM Moscow Ministerial Meeting, to enhance the implementation of measures for reducing phosphorus and nitrogen losses from agriculture as listed in the Baltic Sea Action Plan and legislative frameworks.

For conservation of biodiversity and to ensure sufficient knowledge-base for future management of the marine environment, scientific inventories, assessments and mapping activities need be continued. This is of utmost importance for a proper application of the ecosystem approach to the management of human activities, in which maritime spatial planning is an import tool. Moreover, elaboration of management plans and measures for all marine protected areas is crucial for ensuring effective spatial protection for species and habitats, including further designations of MPAs, which helps to ensure the ecological coherence of the network of protected areas in the Baltic Sea.

Depending on the country, some of the major focus areas will be further upgrading of wastewater treatment plants, promoting wastewater treatment in scattered housing and supporting implementation of effective measures to diminish nutrient loads from agriculture especially in areas with high area-specific nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the sea. Among other priority areas the Communiqué also identifies the recycling of nutrients and developing further clean and safe shipping especially in view of the increasing volume of traffic in the Baltic Sea, including installing/upgrading port reception facilities for the delivery of sewage from  passenger ships. Additionally, the document calls for strengthening the monitoring and control of the input of hazardous substances to the Baltic Sea, habitat restoration and measures to protect migratory fish species, and coastal fish populations, and developing and implementing management plans for existing marine protected areas. Based on the NIPs, the joint document suggests to further develop project ideas covering all segments of the Baltic sea action plan and match it with the funding from the international funding community, in particular the Baltic Sea Action Plan Trust Fund managed by NIB and NEFCO.

Note to Editors:

The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission, usually referred to as the Helsinki Commission, or HELCOM, is an intergovernmental organization 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)46 8509196
Fax: +358 (0)207 412 645
E-mail: nikolay.vlasov@helcom.fi