A letter to the Ministers responsible for Environmental Affairs by the Thematic Session on Sustainable Lifestyle of the Baltic Sea NGO Forum
Turku, 8-11 May, 2003

In the struggle for sustainable development, the participating members of non-governmental organisations underline the importance of setting concrete goals with the possibility of verifying that these goals have been reached. NGOs also point out that numerous agreements and programmes already exist - what is needed is their proper implementation.

NGOs challenge the Environmental Ministers of the Baltic Sea Region to contribute to building a sustainable and secure society. As all problems cannot be tackled at once, NGOs have listed the issues that are considered most urgent during the year 2003 - 2004.

First of all, a strong regional policy in the field of environmental issues will benefit all the countries in the region, especially those countries that need support in strengthening their structures of environmental and human health protection.

Existing international agreements and national legislation provide a good basis for environmental protection and nature conservation in the Baltic Sea Area. NGOs call the Ministers of Environment to secure hand in hand with the other sectoral ministers a rapid implementation of the Baltic 21 (from 1998) actions and establish proper control mechanisms over the implementation of this programme. Forum participants urge the Ministers to reinforce the Baltic 21 process by setting up a time schedule, budget line and target values for selected indicators for the agreed sector-specific and cross-sector actions. All Ministers should ensure adequate high-level input to push sustainable development forward within their sectors of Baltic 21.

Furthermore, it is essential to ensure proper application of Environmental Impact Assessment, including the implementation of the Espoo Convention (1991) if activities are likely to have a transboundary impact. In large construction projects public awareness and participation should not only be allowed, but actively promoted. In this task NGOs can provide assistance to public authorities and private companies. NGOs call for governments to sign, ratify and fully implement the Espoo Convention and the Aarhus convention (1998) by all Baltic Sea countries.

In order to maintain the state of the environment in the Baltic Sea Region, NGOs urge the governments around the Baltic Sea to apply the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) for granting the Baltic Sea the status of Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA). Strict regulations should be proposed for the IMO including the phase-out of single-hull tankers by the year 2005 and the introduction of a compulsory pilotage for ships navigating in selected areas of the Baltic Sea, such as the Gulf of Finland and Kadetrenden, "Route T" and "The Sound" through the Danish islands. The education of crews has to be improved so that an appropriate level of competence is reached aboard all ships. A special Joint Baltic Sea Fund funded by fees from ship owners and shipping companies operating in the Baltic Sea should be founded to cover rescue operation costs in case of oil spills.

The participants remind the Ministers to implement the HELCOM recommendations on Baltic Sea Protected Areas (BSPA). At least 60 % of the BSPAs should be put into force before May 2004.

More financial support has to be given to environmentally oriented programmes. Especially coastal management projects have to be provided with obligatory precondition of public participation. Pilot projects on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) under equal joint leadership of non-governmental and governmental organisations should be launched.

Local, regional and national governments should create structural preconditions for leading a sustainable lifestyle in the Baltic Sea Region. Forum urges the CBSS governments to effectively implement new economic and regulatory instruments, including corporate responsibilities and ecological taxation in order to decouple economic growth from environmental and social degradation. Environmental and social authorities must be given powers to use these measures in order to ensure that global trade do not compromise human rights, environmental protection or livelihoods of local communities anywhere in the world.

In improving environment friendly technology and regulations, governments have to take into consideration the rebound effect: i.e. even if the eco-efficiency of single products increases, the overall negative effect on environment may increase if the volume of consumption grows simultaneously. This should be avoided.

NGOs remind the governments that it is necessary to integrate the environmental considerations into sector policies.

In the energy sector NGOs consider oil extraction projects in the Baltic Sea as environmentally, economically and socially dangerous, and call the CBSS prime ministers to initiate moratorium on oil extraction in the Baltic Sea.

In agriculture NGOs want to influence the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform in order to get support for grazing animals, which are needed to keep the landscape open and to maintain the biological diversity.

With fisheries NGOs consider the recommendations for the Baltic Sea from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) most important and urge that these recommendations should be followed by the regional fishery commissions when the total allowable catch is decided. NGOs urge for cooperation between the Coalition Clean Baltic member organisations in order to continuously follow up the recommendations from ICES with direct contacts with all national governments. NGOs also call for restoration of the salmon stocks and a ban on drift-nets. It is necessary to stop planning regulating and damming of rivers, that can have damaging effect on the ecosystems of river valleys.

In transport and construction policies it is important to follow the directives on nature conservation areas, wetlands amongst others. For example an important wetland outside Umeå will be severely affected by a new railway line. The European Commission has agreed to this provided sufficient mitigation measures are taken. However, building the railway line through this area will violate the Ramsar Convention on wetlands.

Having collected input from a wide range of non-governmental organisations from all around the Baltic Sea, NGOs would highly appreciate a reply from the Ministers responsible for environmental issues. NGOs ask Ministers of Environment to provide the next Baltic Sea NGO Forum that will be held in April-May 2004 in Estonia with a letter listing the measures that have been taken in order to achieve the above mentioned goals. If Ministers choose not to fulfill some measures, NGOs will appreciate an explanation why these measures have not been fulfilled.