Baltic Sea: an introduction
Anne Christine Brusendorff, Executive Secretary, Helsinki
Commission (HELCOM)
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
pecies 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.
In 1974 the Baltic Sea States signed the Convention on
the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea
Area, otherwise known as the 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 was signed by all the
countries bordering on the Baltic Sea and by the European
Economic Community. The Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) is
the governing body of the Convention.
Also, in 1992 the Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Environmental
Action Programme (JCP) was established. One important action
under the JCP is the identification and cleaning up of serious
pollution areas; the so-called ‘hot spots’.
Since then about 50 of the 132 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. In 2004 an updated
strategy on Hazardous substances was adopted.
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.
On 2003 a HELCOM Ministerial meeting decided that all
HELCOM actions must be based on an ecosystem approach to
the management of human activities. In order to facilitate
this development Ecological Quality Objectives that express
‘good quality status’ are being developed. For
the foreseeable future, the focus of HELCOM's work will
be to limit discharges of nutrients and hazardous substances
from land-based activities, prevent pollution by shipping,
ensure response to accidents at sea, conserve natural habitats
and biological diversity, and bring about the long-term
restoration of the ecological balance of the Baltic Sea.
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