Baltic Sea environment and conservation

A lost opportunity

Governments have broken their promise to save the Baltic Sea.

In 2005, HELCOM and all the governments around the Baltic Sea, decided to develop and implement a plan to ‘drastically reduce pollution to the Baltic Sea and restore its good ecological status by 2021’ – the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP).

WWF, like many organizations and governments around the region, welcomed this initiative. The ambitions of the BSAP were to achieve an ecosystem based management in the Baltic Sea region. The BSAP process was also seen as a unique opportunity to unite the countries around the Baltic Sea in one shared action plan.

This opportunity has now been lost due to the lack of political will, accountability and leadership from the governments around the region.

The BSAP, endorsed with much fanfare by the Ministers of the Baltic Sea countries, falls far short of its lofty ambitions.  

Originally, the proposed text of the plan did indeed include many of the strong actions and tough decisions that were needed.  Over time the plan has been successively weakened due to economic and political self-interest and cowardice among all the countries involved.

Sadly, what is left is yet another declaration which promises to ‘save the Baltic’ but will do little more than add to the already growing stack of paper declarations that restate the bold ambitions to protect the Baltic Sea – but offer nothing in the way of binding commitments that will hold them accountable to actually doing just that.

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