The Baltic is a young sea, and one of the world’s most extraordinary for the beauty and variety of the marine environment and its surrounding landscapes. Since the last Ice Age these waters have at different times been a wide strait, a large bay, a lake and now an inland sea connected to the open ocean only by narrow straits. Water exchange with the open ocean is slow, and salinity varies considerably both between different waters and over time.
The Baltic is nevertheless home to many species of plants, animals and microorganisms in a great variety of different habitats. Most of these are at risk from human activity, and many Baltic fish populations are now thought to be dangerously low.

Among the main threats are eutrophication caused primarily by excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the water; pollution by hazardous substances including pesticides, heavy metals and industrial wastes; habitat destruction; the use of certain harmful fishing equipment, and the introduction of alien invasive species.

On 24 March 1974 the Baltic Sea States signed the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area, known as the 1974 Helsinki Convention. This was a pioneering agreement on many fronts. It was the first regional agreement ever to cover all sources of pollution, whether from land, sea or air.

In its first two decades, the Convention oversaw considerable progress, including improvements in the sanitary conditions of previously polluted water, significant reductions in discharges of organochlorine compounds from industry and of lead emissions from land-transport, and rehabilitation of some formerly seriously endangered living species.

In 1992, a new Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area – more usually known as the Helsinki Convention – was signed by all the countries bordering on the Baltic Sea and by the European Economic Community. HELCOM is the governing body of the Convention.
Since 1992, more than 34 of the 132 serious pollution areas – so called hot spots – identified around the Baltic Sea have been cleaned up. Nevertheless, concentrations of PCBs and DDT remain much higher in the Baltic than in the North Sea or the open Atlantic Ocean. HELCOM put a Hazardous Substances Project team to work in 1998 to reduce discharges, emissions and losses of hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea drainage basin through 2020, and selected 42 hazardous substances for immediate priority action.

Crisscrossed by some of the busiest shipping routes in the world, the Baltic remains under permanent threat from maritime pollution incidents. In September 2001 nine Baltic countries and the EU launched an extensive package of measures – the HELCOM Copenhagen Declaration – to ensure the safety of navigation and a swift national and trans-national response to maritime pollution incidents.

For the foreseeable future, the focus of our work will be to limit discharges of nutrients and hazardous substances from land-based activities, prevent pollution by shipping, conserve natural habitats and biological diversity, and bring about the long-term restoration of the ecological balance of the Baltic Sea.

Mieczyslaw S. Ostojski is Executive Secretary
of the Helsinki Commission