Sindre Langaas, Ph.D.
Program Manager UNEP/GRID-Arendal
Stockholm, June 1996
The Baltic Sea region is unique.
It is unique because it has the world's largest brackish water body covering an surface area of 400,000 sq.km. and a drainage area four times larger. The Baltic Sea is surrounded by nine riparian states - Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden - and five peripheral states - Belarus, Ukraine, the Slovak Republic, Czechia, and Norway - with a total population of 85,000,000. Besides contributing to extensive pollution of the Baltic Sea, the population modify the natural ecosystems of the region by exerting various types of pressures, thus influencing biodiversity, and rates of toxic pollutants, to mention a few issues.
It is unique because there is an extensive international environmental collaboration in the region. In a global context, the Baltic Sea region has been looked upon as a model for regional environmental co-operation since the seventies. Despite the Cold War, the first Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area of 1974 - the 1974 Helsinki Convention - was at that time probably the most comprehensive international environmental treaty signed so far. A central part of the work implemented under the framework of this Convention and its successor the 1992 convention is a joint environmental monitoring programme with the aim to regularly assess the environmental state of the Baltic Sea and its living species. The scope has been expanded and the 1992 convention also encompass protection and conservation of coastal ecosystems and biological diversity. The 18 billion ECU Joint Comprehensive Environmental Action Programme is probably the world's most comprehensive integrated pollution reduction programme ever presented for a regional sea. The Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission regulating the fisheries of the Baltic Sea is another prime example of such regional collaboration.
It is unique because the break-down of the former East - West borders has considerably speeded up the interactions between the environmental community on the Eastern and Western shores of the Baltic Sea, both on the political high level, as exemplified by the very recent Visby Baltic Sea States Summit in May, and on the grass-root level, as exemplified by various cross-Baltic NGO networks. The well-developed marine scientific collaboration that has existed within the HELCOM framework for a long time has expanded further.
In a wider context, these unique features makes the Baltic Sea region particularly well prepared, on an (eco-)regional level, to address the many issues pointed out in the Agenda 21 from the 1992 UNCED Conference in Rio and the Environment for Europe Conferences in Lucerne 1993 and Sofia 1995.
One issue addressed in both Agenda 21 and the Environment for Europe documents, is the need for improved access to and availability of information for decision making. This need is probably best articulated in Chapter 40 of Agenda 21; Information for Decision Making. A strong emphasis is placed upon the use electronic computer networks as a tool to improve access to and availability of information in this chapter. Agenda 21 was made in 1992. Internet was at that time a useful tool for a limited number of scientists with advanced computer skills. Since then revolutionary changes that have taken place in the area of computerised networks. These changes are mostly related to the easiness and user-friendliness by which the layman - and decision-maker - connected to Internet can communicate and access environmental information (as well as other types of information). The Internet sub-component World Wide Web (WWW) has allowed for efficient and transparent dissemination and exchange of information of relevance to manage the environment. Except for language problems, the common pool of information found on Internet can be shared by all connected parties, whether in Haparanda or in Pskov, thereby creating a common information ground for decisions and actions to be taken to improve the Baltic Sea region environment..
Despite a great potential in the sharing and communication of environmental information
within the Baltic Sea region, there exist certain limitations in the Internet technology and its current development status that prevents its full potential being utilised. Three main issues are:
In this setting, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), represented by its GRID-Arendal centre, and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency proposes the establishment of a regional Internet based collaborative network for the main national and international environmental information providers. The overall aim is to make this Baltic region network based on Internet a significant source for information for environmental decision making, irrespective of whether the 'decision maker' is found on the grass-root level working within a NGO or simply being a school pupil, or on the international level working for an IGO such as HELCOM. The initiative has been named BALtic Sea Region On-Line Environmental Information Resources for INternet Access - BALLERINA.
More specifically, the main objectives of the BALLERINA initiative are:
The initiative has a model in the Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN), which started in 1993 in the bilateral Great Lakes region of the USA and Canada.
The remaining part of this document is structured according to the six main dimensions found to be crucial for the development and sustainability of BALLERINA. These dimensions are also the main issues to be discussed at the BALLERINA Workshop. They area:
It is suggested that the questions raised or proposals put forward below are being addressed in the workshop discussions. These points addressed are by no means exhaustive. Additional issues and questions may be raised under each of the six dimensions. The discussions will take part in smaller groups, and the conclusions be presented in plenary.
For the long-term sustainability of BALLERINA, a key topic is its 'political' mandate. BALLERINA is intended to be developed as a co-operative network of agencies and organisations that produce and disseminate environmental information from the Baltic Sea region. Obviously, it is of crucial importance that BALLERINA are able to secure the explicit support and involvement of these organisations.
Some key questions to be discussed at the workshop are:
Is BALLERINA competing with or complementing other Internet based environmental information networks currently being planned or developed ?
Is there any potential 'political' or democratic conflict lying in the fact that Internet technology is unequally distributed within the Baltic Sea and many thereby are excluded from BALLERINA ?
How important is it that the BALLERINA initiative is being recognised at the high political (Minister of Environment) level ? Should it be brought up at the upcoming Baltic States Environmental Ministers follow-up meeting in September to the Visby Summit ?
Can this Workshop be considered sufficiently prominent, considering its participating institutions, to give the BALLERINA initiative the mandate ?
The backbone of the BALLERINA development is based upon that most of the 'publication' and communication of environmental information on Internet takes place decentralised, on local WWW servers and on local PCs. Still, the idea of overarching co-ordination is equally important from a number of perspectives. One aspect is the BALLERINA home page. Such a Baltic Sea regional WWW 'gateway' or home page (and numerous hyper-linked WWW pages) needs to be developed by somebody. The BALLERINA home page will contain hyper-links to various information resources developed locally. A decision-making mechanism needs to be set up so that the information providers jointly can guide the content, form and design of this joint home page, and its related pages. Similarly, priorities need to be set about which information resources to make available through the BALLERINA. Several of the others dimensions require similar types of decisions among the BALLERINA partners to make BALLERINA a truly co-operative effort.
Thus, an institutional framework and collaborative mechanisms needs to be developed to ensure that the BALLERINA co-operation is being developed in a dynamic and competent manner, and at the same time based upon broad solutions.
The Great Lakes Information Network has developed a model for an institutional framework. After three years of existence this model appears to function well and enable the active involvement in the GLIN decision making process of its GLIN partners. The GLIN solution is proposed as a model for BALLERINA, however with needs for regional solutions.
The GLIN Board is an open body composed of main GLIN partners meeting on a regular basis to oversee the development of GLIN and to give the necessary guidelines as representatives of those giving GLIN its mandate. The participation in an open Board inevitably will have to be covered by the participating institutions themselves. This, in effect may well cause a strong bias in the Board with only the 'rich' institutions represented. It might be discussed if it is better to make the BALLERINA Board closed (but still broad), since the Board expenses ideally should be covered externally for this particular region. If it is agreed that the size of the Board should be limited, then selection criteria needs to be developed to ensure the broad representation. The GLIN Board is headed by a Chair and supported by a Co-Chair, positions that circulate among the Board Members.
In order to have a dynamic and competent driving force underpinning the development, a strong lead party is required. This could be composed of one or several institutions. In the case of GLIN, the lead party role is being shared among two institutions, the Great Lakes Commission and CICnet. The first has the overall lead while the latter takes care of the technical lead.
The generic requirements for the lead party should be that they are recognised as an important institution(s) in the region when it concerns environmental information, that they are considered neutral and unbiased, that they have considerable (institutional and personal) networking experience from the region, that they possess knowledge and skills in the environmental issues of the region as well as the Internet technology required, and that they have shown fund-raising capacity.
It is considered important that regular open meetings are organised on an annual or biennial basis. Such meetings will be important from a large number of reasons. The possibility to tune the development of BALLERINA by having the opportunity to listen to many of the information providers is one reason. Furthermore, such meetings allows for organisation of dedicated workshops focused on various topics.
BALLERINA might be used as an umbrella framework for various types of co-operative efforts aimed at making environmental information available on Internet BALLERINA may facilitate the development of a geographically or thematically focused BALLERINA institutional networks. Examples of geographical networks can be national , e.g. a Polish, multi-national , e.g., a Baltic States network, and sub-regional transboundary networks, e.g., for the Lake Peipsi region. Examples of thematical networks groups can be for air-quality issues in the Baltic region or one for Baltic Sea marine science centres. Such initiatives, in many cases already exist or are being planned, indeed require a bottom-up approach to make sense. It is not of any significance whether such networks consider themselves as an explicit BALLERINA sub-network or not, as long as environmental information is being published on Internet. By the hopeful increasing visibility that BALLERINA may create, institutions with similar (information dissemination) objectives may 'find' each other and develop common thematic or geographical sub-home pages. National environmental information home pages, for example, are now being developed in all the three Baltic States.
Is this overall proposal for an institutional framework acceptable in order to ensure a representative and 'democratic' decision-making process when it concerns the development of BALLERINA ?
Are there other options that appear more attractive ?
Many tend to give large emphasis to the Internet technology within the BALLERINA initiative. Apart from being the backbone (!) of the entire BALLERINA initiative, we consider this of minor importance relative to the other dimensions of BALLERINA. Still, different options exist for a number of issues. We tend to follow the general GLIN approach, but suggest some adaptations to Baltic Sea region.
A central BALLERINA Internet server is needed. This does not necessary have to be a dedicated server. It can well be a server hosted by one of the lead parties. It is suggested that the domain name BALLERINA.NET is being applied to maintain maximum institutional neutrality. This is considered of utmost importance to prevent that BALLERINA becomes an institutional 'property' of the lead parties. The BALLERINA server, outfitted with the necessary Internet facility software, should be used to host material from institutions without sufficiently technical capacity or interest to maintain their own Internet server besides the BALLERINA home pages..
It may also be considered as important and desirable that some countries get their own national BALLERINA server. This may be of particular relevance in the CIS and CEE countries, where such servers are sparse. This question is connected to the capacity and awareness dimension.
The World Wide Web (WWW) part of Internet is considered the main Internet facility within the BALLERINA initiative. While WWW mostly is being used as means to disseminate and publish information, it has increasingly become an interactive tool, mainly by the increased use of e-mail (mailto:) and forms possibilities. The possibility to use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is quite evident. Some search and navigational mechanisms on the main BALLERINA server should also be implemented.
The establishment of a limited number of mailing lists may also be considered.
Despite the fact that the use of Internet is increasing at a very rapid rate within the Baltic Sea region environmental community, targeted capacity building activities are still needed. These can range from the awareness raising to advanced HTML coding and programming. The key concern of this dimension is to bring the Baltic Sea region environmental institutions and persons to the Internet, and in particular from parts of the region where such actors are missing.
It is important that main environmental information institutions without or with limited Internet publication skills obtain necessary training.
It may also considered that key user groups of BALLERINA are being educated in how to best utilise BALLERINA in search of relevant information.
GLIN has developed various types of educational material, addressing both the information publishers and the information users.
There are certainly good ideas among the workshop participants for various types of training activities, but a main question is to the set priorities optimal since hardly all ideas can materialise.
It is proposed that the BALLERINA co-operative effort takes a proactive role when it concerns the population of key environmental information for the Baltic Sea region on Internet. This is considered necessary since the current information available on-line is minute compared to what is found in traditional print. The identification of key pieces of information that many are (potentially) interested in is one important step in this direction.
It is proposed that the workshop participants try to identify a number of key pieces of information that should be published on Internet in the Baltic Sea region, i.e., within the BALLERINA framework. Some examples of key environmental information that should be made on-line:
To establish mechanisms that ensure that such key information this is being published on-line is another task. Earmarked funds for conversion from conventional publishing formats to HTML formats and training in WWW publishing are seen as two different avenues to the same goal.
Of the above five dimensions, all - may be with the exception of the political - require significant resources to be addressed successfully. For many environmental information institutions around the Baltic Sea, resources for Internet publishing will be provided anyhow irrespective of the development of BALLERINA. Many institutions already publish interesting and useful material on Internet, while others build up their institutional competence in such techniques.
Given the many dimensions of the BALLERINA initiative, and composition of involved countries it is evident that BALLERINA is a typical case for multi-source funding, if not one single funding sources is keen on funding it all.
The possibility for obtaining funds for dedicated resource assignment for the CIS and CEE countries appear to be quite promising.
The workshop participants are requested to discuss potential sources.