No more EU-trophication! How CAP reform can save the Baltic Sea
© Johanna Tunnela/WWF
No more EU-trophication
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In the last 150 years, the Baltic Sea has developed from a pristine, nutrient-poor, clear water sea to permanent eutrophic conditions. A key factor in the environmental degradation of the BalticSea is the intensification of agriculture – much of it in the last 50 years – in the surrounding drainage basin.
Large amounts of nutrients, mainly nitrogen and phosphorus, are released into the Baltic Sea each year as a result of modern farming practices such as the useof artificial fertilisers.
A key component in solving the problemof eutrophication lies on the land and in the promotion of more sustainable farming and land management practices.
Successive reforms of EU’s CommonAgricultural Policy (CAP) have started the process of putting agriculture on a more sustainable footing but much remains to be done.
Putting an end to eutrophication of the Baltic Sea, and to a wide range of other environmental problems associated with European agriculture, demands further, progressive reform of the CAP.
The time is now ripe to consider what changes are needed in agriculture policy over the coming decade or more.
WWF, in seeking to address eutrophication of the Baltic Sea, presents a vision for policy reform that reaches far beyond the Baltic Sea States.
Time must not be wasted in moving towards a new vision for rural Europe.
In this paper, WWF outlines a vision for a new Common Environment and Rural Policy (CERP) and argues that steps must be taken now to make that vision a reality.
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