For a sustainable Baltic Sea: The Baltic Sea Action Plan beyond 2021

A total of 49 new actions to be considered for inclusion in the updated BSAP were voiced during the conference, touching upon a variety of topics such as hazardous substances, marine litter, shipping and other sea-based activities, as well as eutrophication and biodiversity.

Climate change was also heavily emphasized during the conference, as was the issue of implementation of BSAP actions at the national level, where stakeholders felt more progress should be made. Better collaboration between ministries and authorities also featured highly on the participants’ wish list, along breaking “thinking in silos” in favour of a more holistic view of protection of the marine environment of the Baltic Sea.

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It is expected that the update of the BSAP will include considerations on climate change, marine litter, pharmaceuticals, underwater noise, and loss and disturbance of seabed, among other pressures. Based on the existing plan, the update will maintain at least the same level of ambition and include all actions and measures from that plan that have not been implemented yet.

The proposed actions gathered from the Stakeholder Conference will now be forwarded to the relevant HELCOM working groups for further consideration and possible additional development within HELCOM and the BSAP update processes.

The full article can be found at helcom.fi

An interview with Ottilia Thoreson (WWF Baltic) about the BSAP update is available at helcom.fi

A coalition of Clean Baltic and the WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme are urging Baltic Sea countries to speed up commitments made to the BSAP. They presented a joint ‘Shadow Plan’ in response to the ongoing BSAP update process. More information can be found at ccb.se
Read and download the full Baltic Shadow Plan (pdf) at ccb.se