Kolumni Helsinki Times-lehdessä 27.10.2011
National Coalition’s Sari Sarkomaa is a fourth-term Member of Parliament from Helsinki, and a member of Helsinki municipal council. She holds a Master’s degree in healthcare, and is chair of the Parliamentary Subcommittee for Municipal and Health Affairs.
Septic Sea or Baltic Sea?
One of the highlights of our summer sailing holiday was supposed to be our arrival in the idyllic harbour at Nynänshamn in Sweden. It didn’t turn out as we’d hoped.
Stinking green seaweed had clogged the shore. “Silly Swedes, making a mess of their sea,” complained one of our children. At first my son’s reaction brought a smile to my face amidst the smell and the disappointment. It’s not easy to explain to a child that the seas are our shared responsibility, and the mess wasn’t just the Swedes’ fault but all our fault. Despite recent efforts, the Baltic is still the world’s most polluted sea.
The biggest threat to the Baltic is eutrophication, the over-accumulation of dissolved nutrients in the water and consequent overburdening of the sea’s natural ability to break down nutrients. The water’s dissolved oxygen is depleted in the process, turning the sea into a body of water that gradually feeds its own destruction. The biggest contributor to the over-enrichment of our coastal waters is the agricultural sector. Of all the phosphates and nitrates that end up in the sea, between 50 and 60 per cent get there via run-off from fields.
To reduce the emission of nutrients into our waterways and into the Baltic, tougher measures are needed. The major shortcoming has been the poor effect of environmental subsidies to the agricultural sector. The subsidies have ended up becoming more a form of income support than a means of environmental protection. Despite this failure, the fact remains that reducing the amount of nutrients that make their way in to the waterways is vital if we are to rescue the Baltic Sea. In this respect, the proposal of the new Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Jari Koskinen (NCP) is to be welcomed.
The Minister has proposed that nutrient emissions from agriculture could be reduced by putting fields out to tender. The purpose of this would be to provide a way for the fields that most pollute the waterways to be voluntarily taken out of use as arable land. Salvaging the Baltic requires more initiatives of this kind, in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment. The government is strongly committed to pushing for European Union agricultural policy reform in order to promote effective environmental protection in the Baltic Region.
Most importantly, the system of environmental subsidies to the agricultural sector is being reformed to provide better protection of the country’s waterways and natural biodiversity. Under the reformed system, environmental subsidies will be regionally allocated both per holding and by block to the areas that are most critical for waterway protection. This is just as the National Coalition has long demanded. It is reassuring that the government programme led by my party colleague, Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen, provides new hope for the Baltic. The overall objective of the several significant environmental provisions in the government programme is to improve protective measures, both domestically and in cooperation with other Baltic states. Cooperation also continues with St. Petersburg and other towns and cities in the Leningrad region to help reduce municipal and agricultural emissions into the waterways. The aim is to help modernise and enlarge waste water treatment facilities at ports in the Baltic area, and to achieve a blanket prohibition on the passage of untreated waste water into the sea.
Finland is also active in improving the capabilities for preventing oil and chemical spills. The risk of oil spills will be reduced by further developing the control systems and security of sea traffic. In addition, improvements in nitrogen removal at waste water treatment plants, particularly of those near the Baltic coast. Environmental permissions are an effective way of achieving this.
Care of the environment is not a luxury, to be put on the back burner when times are tough economically. As we contend with the ongoing financial crisis in Europe, we must be sure that the goals we have set for protecting the Baltic are neither watered down nor abandoned. It is our common responsibility to leave for future generations a Baltic Sea that gives them no reason for shame.