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Baltic COMPASS -
Comprehensive Policy Actions and Sustainable Solutions for Agriculture in the Baltic Sea Region
Background Click here for further materials
Baltic COMPASS project has grown out of a large number of international projects in the field of land use, agriculture, water and environment related to the protection of the Baltic Sea. Specifically, Baltic COMPASS is a response to the need for a transnational approach to reduce eutrophication of the Baltic Sea and to build adaptive management capacity with respect to international frameworks, EU directives and the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP).
Land use for agricultural purposes in the Baltic Sea Region is expected to intensify due to climate change and increasing global demands for food and bioenergy. This is likely to exacerbate current pressures on the sensitive marine ecosystems. The competence, technologies, policies and science for developing more sustainable solutions are available in the Baltic Sea Region, but these are currently unevenly distributed and harmonized between regions, and moreover between the west and the east. This is the specific transnational challenge addressed by Baltic COMPASS.
Aim and Target Groups
The project will particularly aim to remedy the gaps in the stakeholders' capacity and resources to combat euthrophication and communicate on the different policy levels, and the lack of trust between the environmental and agricultural sectors. The project aims to support win-win solutions for agriculture, environment and the people throughout the Baltic Sea Region. 22 partners from authorities, interest organizations and research institutes in Finland, Russia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden constitutes the partnership.
The target groups for Baltic COMPASS are governments, authorities, agencies, interest organizations and companies with influence on land use in the Baltic Sea Region.
HELCOM's Role
In collaboration with the Swedish Board of Agriculture, HELCOM will be providing insights within the COMPASS Work Package 6, regarding Baltic Sea Region level policy dialogue in agriculture and environment issues for the benefit of the Baltic Sea. More specifically, HELCOMs tasks include “Exploring cross sector and cross border dialogues” (see further information in the box below). The task will run from July to December 2012.
Exploring Cross Sector and Cross Border Dialogues
Background: Developing a prospering agriculture in the Baltic Sea Region requires continued acknowledging of the multipleservices that the sector provides, but also identification of solutions to existing challenges in terms of environmental pressures. In response to this, through different forums and projects several actors have expressed an interest to strengthen communication and collaborations between the BSR countries in the agri-environmental field.
Baltic Compass is now starting up a process of looking into what forms for collaboration could be beneficial for the respective sectors. The work is a continuation of previous Baltic Compass work on governance dialogues and agri-environmental issues, and is run jointly with Swedish Board of agriculture and HELCOM.
Objective: to identify existing or potential structures for dialogue on agriculture and environmental management issues in the Baltic Sea Region, where such dialogues would benefit the Baltic Sea.
We are planning to contact a number of representatives with a few brief questions related to this exercise. We hope that you do not mind if we contact you in this respect. Meanwhile, we welcome any input and views that you may have on this topic!
Outcomes
Click here to review Outcomes of Baltic COMPASS
Full sets of materials - event proceedings, project reports, external reports and newsletters - are available at the project website/materials (http://www.balticcompass.org/materials.html).
The project runs from December 2009 until December 2012 and has a budget of 6,7 MEUR co-financed by the EU Baltic Sea Region Programme.
Calendar of Events
Conference 24-25 October, Copenhagen:
Greener Agriculture for a Bluer Baltic Sea 2012 http://www.balticcompass.org/_blog/Events/post/Greener_Agriculture_for_a_Bluer_Baltic_Sea_/
Further Materials
List to selected reports related to Baltic COMPASS work that we would recommend about nutrient management and agri-environmental measures.
Further Information
Please visit the project website http://www.balticcompass.org/index.html for details and follow-up of the project activities, or contact project focal points at the HELCOM Secretariat:
Mr. Kaj Granholm
Project Researcher
Tel. +358 46 850 9208
Fax: +358 207 412 645
E-mail: kaj.granholm@helcom.fi
Ms. Linda Johansson
Agro-Environment Advisor
HELCOM Secretariat
Tel: +358 40 747 0408
E-mail: linda.johansson@helcom.fi
Ms. Anuschka Heeb
Agro-Environment Advisor
HELCOM/Swedish Board of Agriculture
tel: +46 13 1965 48, +46 72 2033 953
E-mail: anuschka.heeb@jordbruksverket.se
Last updated 5 October 2012