HELCOM Baltic recovery plan nearly complete
Tue, October 2, 2007
19.09.2007 - Press release
The HELCOM Member States made considerable progress in negotiating the final version of the Baltic Sea Action Plan at the Meeting of the Heads of Delegation to the Commission, held on 17-19 September in Helsinki. The main aim was to bring countries’ positions to drastically reduce pollution to the Baltic Sea and restore its good ecological status by 2021.
The Baltic Sea Action Plan, which the HELCOM Member States decided to jointly draft in 2005, sets an ambitious target of achieving by 2021 a good ecological status of the Baltic Sea by solving all major environmental problems affecting the Baltic marine environment.
Of the many environmental challenges, the most serious is the continuing eutrophication of the Baltic Sea, caused by excessive nutrient pollution loads of nitrogen and phosphorus to the sea originating from agriculture and untreated sewage. Problems like algal blooms, dead sea-beds, depletion of fish stocks clearly show the situation and call for immediate wide-scale action to put an end to further destruction of the Baltic Sea environment to avoid an irreversible disaster. Read more at Helcom website